


Before the Darkness Swallows You

by Veldeia



Category: Avengers (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst and Feels, Avengers Vol. 3 (1998), Blood and Gore, Cap_Ironman Reverse Bang Challenge 2016, Frottage, Getting Together, Happy Ending, M/M, Mind Games, Survival Horror, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-08 01:36:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6833455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veldeia/pseuds/Veldeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Steve was gone.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Tony was all alone in the dark, the blackness of the damp, rock-walled corridor only occasionally broken by the fluttering fluorescent lamps in the ceiling.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>He wasn’t afraid of the dark. An abandoned mine was by no means the scariest environment he’d ended up in. Still, he’d have been crazy not to be afraid of what lurked in these shadows.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Blood, violence and multiple temporary character deaths. More detailed, _very_ spoilery notes about warnings at [the end](http://archiveofourown.org/chapters/15773551#work_endnotes).
> 
> This story was inspired by the [incredible art](https://65.media.tumblr.com/9c45a68b959f7f3a8db16bef443a037d/tumblr_o7kuphq26k1uffwpso1_1280.png) by [Mr. Domon](http://tonysvandyke.tumblr.com), who also gave me many ideas that shaped the story into its current form, and was very supportive and friendly—thank you so much, it was great to work with you! <3
> 
> A big thank you also goes to my awesome betas [kneelingtothenorthernlights](http://kneelingtothenorthernlights.tumblr.com), [Amonae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Amonae/pseuds/Amonae), [antigrav_vector](http://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector) and [kalashia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kalashia/pseuds/kalashia) for all their help with grammar, characterization, and everything in between!

### Prologue

Steve was gone.

Tony was all alone in the dark, the blackness of the damp, rock-walled corridor he was shuffling through only occasionally broken by the fluttering fluorescent lamps in the ceiling, half of them out of commission.

He wasn’t afraid of the dark. He spent the better part of his days facing the worst villains and monsters in all the known universes. An abandoned mine was by no means the scariest environment he’d ended up in. Still, he’d have been crazy not to be afraid of what lurked in these shadows.

He clutched the car battery closer to his chest, like a scared child clinging to a plushy toy—a particularly heavy, clunky one that currently happened to be powering his artificial heart.

He had no idea where he was going. He just needed to get away, needed to leave behind the—oh god, oh fuck, the carnage, the death, the blood. _Steve._ That hadn't been Steve anymore. That had been—no, he couldn’t think of it. Shouldn’t think of it or he’d throw up again. He was no stranger to injuries or blood or even death, but—he felt sick. So much blood. The smell of it.

_Don’t think about it. Keep walking._

He swallowed the rising bile, tried to breathe evenly through his nose—light breaths so that they didn’t sting quite so much—and walked on.

Everything was quiet, for the time being. He was far enough not to hear the creatures feasting on Ste—on what remained. They’d let Tony go, for now. He was sure they’d come looking for him, sooner or later, when they were done. He had nowhere to go. He had no clue which way the exit lay anymore. The tunnels seemed to go on for miles and miles.

When he ran into a dead end, he decided it was time to stop. Turning around and going back would only bring him to face _them_ sooner.

He slid to the ground, back against a wall, the battery in his lap.

He could just end it, here and now. Disconnect the cables. Without an external power source, his heart would stop in minutes; it was too badly damaged to hold a charge for longer than that. It wouldn’t even hurt very much. It’d be quick. Much quicker and less painful than the alternative, because when the creatures found him, they would tear him apart. Like they had done to Steve. He would die in the most gruesome way he could imagine.

As much as he wanted to, he knew he wasn’t going to pull the plug. If he did, if he ended it himself, Steve’s sacrifice would have been for nothing. Steve had given his life so that Tony could go on and try to get out. He had to respect that, even though it really didn’t matter anymore.

He had never told Steve how he felt.

Why would he even want to keep going when Steve was dead?

Logically, there had to be a way out. They had come in, and he should be able to leave the same way, if he could somehow find a route to the surface through these endless labyrinthine passages while avoiding the horrors that inhabited them.

He needed to rest first, though. His head was spinning. That’d be shock, no doubt matching both the emotional and medical definitions of the word. He might still be in one piece, physically, but he had lost a lot of blood, and there was that slight issue of the damage to his heart, too. Not to mention his rapidly slipping sanity.

He sat there for a long while. The rock was cold behind and beneath him. He tried not to think. He couldn't close his eyes; he was certain the grisly sight of Steve’s last moments was burned to the backs of his eyelids forever. He breathed through his mouth, doing his best to ignore the unmistakable smell of blood from the cuts running across his chest, because it was an equally strong reminder of the things that would make him lose his mind.

The creatures would not miss that smell. It’d lead them straight to him, the sharks in a sea of darkness, and like sharks, they would devour him.

Minutes passed. Hours, maybe. Time had lost meaning down here.

Finally, just as he knew he would, he heard footsteps approaching, echoing in a silence otherwise only disturbed by the fizz of the flickering lights. Footsteps; soft, wary, but inevitable.

There was no way out. There was no escaping it, no quick and painless death.

They had found him.


	2. Chapter I

### Chapter I

The child was running faster than anyone so small had any right to; even Steve seemed to have trouble keeping up with her as they rushed through the dense undergrowth, weaving their way around the pine trees. There was something looming beyond the edge of the forest: a cliff face, pale under the twilit sky. As they got closer, Tony could see a yawning square gap in it, too regular to be a natural cave. A mine entrance, then, clearly an abandoned one, the road leading to it overgrown in places.

“Wait! Stop! Don’t go in there,” Steve shouted in his loudest, most commanding Cap voice.

The girl cast a glance at them over her shoulder, her blonde hair cascading down her back, her face delicate like that of a porcelain doll, with eyes that seemed colorless in the dim light. She was wearing a simple, pale green dress, and her small feet were bare. She looked scared, too scared to stop, although Tony tried to keep his expression encouraging and saw Steve do the same.

“No! You’re not going to catch me,” the girl said in a tearful voice, and kept going, disappearing into the darkness beyond the mouth of the mine.

Tony couldn't help feeling impressed. He certainly would have been afraid to go in there as a kid. Heck, it was still creeping him out a little.

“How can she possibly be more afraid of us than of a pitch-black mine entrance?” he said, out of breath. He wasn’t wearing his armor, and though he was in as good a shape as he possibly could be, he was never going to win a sprint against Captain America.

“I have no idea,” Steve replied, sounding as apprehensive as Tony felt. “But we can’t let her go in there alone. She might get lost, or fall into a pit, or who knows what.”

“Yeah, we need to catch her before she wanders too far, I don’t even have a light,” Tony noted.

“Neither does she, so unless she can see in the dark, she’s probably not going to go very far,” Steve said sensibly.

Steve was right, of course, on both accounts, and they had to catch her. That mine would be much too dangerous a place for a child to be in.

Steve pulled a flashlight from his belt. Dressed in his costume, he was clearly better prepared for this than Tony. Although Tony’s jeans, turtleneck sweater and fingerless gloves were suited for the crisp weather, they weren’t what he’d choose to wear when exploring mine tunnels.

They headed after the girl, not running at full tilt now, but at a slower jog. When they stepped through the entrance, Tony saw that his worry about the lack of lights had been unnecessary: though the place looked abandoned, some of the fluorescent lamps in the ceiling still worked. They lit up a tunnel nearly twenty feet in diameter, containing a steep ramp leading down into the depths of the mine. In the middle of it ran mine cart tracks, and along each wall, sets of stairs hewn in rock. Tony couldn’t quite tell how old the place might be, but it seemed more like a modern day mining operation than a century-old one with wooden support beams. Overall, it didn’t look like it had been out of use for that long. It couldn’t have been, not with the lights still on.

The girl was skipping lightly down the stone steps by the left hand wall. 

Tony and Steve exchanged a quick glance. There was nothing for it. They needed to follow her.

They ran down the stairs after her.

Although they were catching up, they still couldn’t quite reach her, always a dozen feet behind. Every now and then, the stairs were interrupted by a landing, with passages crossing the ramp and leading into darkness. The girl didn’t slow down or even look into those. Only when she reached the very bottom of the ramp, did she turn and disappear into a passage leading to the left at a right angle.

Tony looked back, up the dimly lit ramp. They’d come down a fair way, several hundred feet. The gaping mouth of the entrance had shrunk into a tiny square of sunlight far above them.

The corridor that the girl had run into was smaller than the ramp, three feet by three, and Tony couldn’t see its end. It went on into the darkness, crossing countless side passages. Back on level ground, the girl had picked up her pace, and was now far ahead of them.

“Kid! Stop!” Steve tried again, but she didn’t even look back this time.

“How can she move so fast?” Tony thought aloud.

“Clearly not a regular human,” Steve stated the obvious, and hurried onward.

She was nowhere near as fast as Quicksilver, but maybe she had a less extreme variant of the same mutation, or some other kind of enhancement. There was something special about her, that was for sure.

Ahead of them, the girl took a sharp turn and disappeared into one of the side passages. Tony tried to take note of which one. It really looked like a maze down here. It’d be all too easy to get lost.

They hadn’t quite reached that junction yet when Tony stepped on something that crunched under his foot. He froze, and noticing he’d stopped, Steve did too, turning to look back.

Tony looked down. He’d stepped on a hand. A skeletal hand, the thin finger bones snapping under his weight. When Steve pointed his light at them, Tony could see they looked worn, as if they’d been gnawed.

“That’s not encouraging at all,” Tony noted.

Abandoned mine. Bones with tooth marks. He honestly couldn’t have figured out how to make this feel more like some kind of a clichéd horror scenario.

“We really, really need to catch her and get the hell out of here,” Steve said resolutely.

Senses on high alert, the hair on the back of his neck standing up, Tony nodded, and they went on. Suddenly, the corridor ahead seemed far more ominous. Did he just see a pale shape flit across it in the distance? Was that the girl?

They reached the junction where the girl had disappeared, and Tony thought she must have gained even more distance from them by now, with the half a minute they’d wasted. Surprisingly enough, he could still see her, at the far end of the side passage, which was even smaller than the one they’d been following.

She stopped running for the first time since they’d entered the mine, and turned to face them. Even from a distance, Tony could tell there was a smile on her lips, sinister and not at all child-like.

The girl chuckled, a light, silvery sound like ringing bells, entirely out of place in the dingy mine passage. Then, she turned on her heel and ran off again.

  


* * *

  


Steve didn’t like this one bit. Something wasn’t right here, that much was certain. The whole situation was odd, and that menacing laughter from the girl—every step they took felt like it was drawing them deeper into a trap. He found himself hesitating, and he could tell Tony was feeling the same way.

“I’ve half a mind to just turn around,” Tony said, sounding like he was irritated at himself for even considering that.

“Yeah,” Steve replied. “Everything about this says ‘trap’ to me.”

Ever since they’d entered these tunnels, Steve had had a nagging feeling that someone was watching them, and a few times he’d thought he’d caught a glance of someone or something, at the corner of his eye, right past the point where he could properly see it. Maybe the girl could teleport. Maybe she was playing tricks with their minds.

“I’d really like to know what her game is, though,” Tony added. “She could be a threat, and if she is, we need to do something about it, before she can lure more people down here.”

“I think it’d be best if we could catch her and ask her a few questions before we leave,” Steve agreed.

“Onwards, then?” Tony said, his tone making clear that it was a question.

“At least a little further,” Steve said.

He started jogging along the narrow corridor where they’d last seen her. It wasn’t quite wide enough for them to move side by side, so Tony followed right behind him.

At the end of the passage, there was yet another T-junction, both arms of it the same size as the passage they were currently in. Steve took the right turn, like he’d seen the girl do. He could just catch sight of the hem of her dress where she darted into another tunnel halfway along the one they'd just entered.

Steve did his best to keep track of each turn they’d taken, and he knew Tony would be doing the same, but she was leading them on a merry chase, and soon, he realized he wasn’t entirely certain of each intersection on the way back anymore.

One more turn brought them to a passage where Steve couldn’t catch sight of her at all. He stopped in his tracks. The corridor seemed to go on for a long way, its end disappearing into the twilight. This mine must spread for miles and miles.

He paused to listen—even that unnerving laughter would’ve helped to give him an idea of which way she’d gone. Instead, he heard the lightest shuffling sound from somewhere to the side, from one of the openings leading to the left.

“What is it?” Tony asked. His ears weren't quite as sharp as Steve’s, so he must not have caught it.

“Think I heard something,” Steve said softly.

Tony got the clue, and didn’t say anything, waiting quietly.

Steve moved forwards, treading as lightly as he could, listening closely.

Something stepped out of the passage right in front of him.

It was a short, slender figure, not quite human, its skin almost translucent in its paleness. It was so emaciated that Steve could’ve counted each rib. The creature’s hands ended in needle-sharp claws. It made a sniffling sound through its flat nose. Its ears were pointed, its eyes entirely milky white, no irises—blind?

Steve grabbed his shield and got it up just in time as the creature lunged for him, its claws hitting the shield with a loud clang that echoed in the corridor.

He heard a feral snarl behind him and Tony swore. Steve didn’t turn to look, keeping his eyes on his opponent. It drew back, as if re-evaluating him, tilting its head. Its lips curled back in a grimace, revealing rows of sharp teeth. It hissed at him.

Without waiting for it to make a move, Steve sent a kick at the creature’s torso. It hopped aside with reflexes fast enough to match his, avoiding his boot, and crouched to the ground, clearly getting ready to leap.

There was an unsettling slashing, rending sound, and Tony cried out in pain.

Steve had to risk a quick glance. He saw that just as he’d thought, another creature had appeared behind them, identical to the one he was fighting. Steve had no time to worry about that. He’d trained Tony in close combat himself; he knew Tony could hold his own. Steve needed to deal with the creature in front of him before he could help his friend.

The creature pounced at him. Instead of parrying, Steve swung the shield at it in a carefully timed sideways arc, wanting to end this once and for all. It collided with the creature’s side, hard enough to divert its momentum and to slam it against the nearest wall. Steve could hear a sickening crunch as the creature’s head smashed against rock, its skull cracking. It slumped bonelessly to the floor, unmoving, a thin trickle of red running down its face.

He turned to see the other creature backing away from Tony. Blood was dripping from its claws. It let out a shrill wail, and moving almost too fast to keep track of, barely making a sound, vanished into a side passage.

Steve stepped to Tony’s side just in time to catch him when his knees started to fold.

“Damn B-movie monster. Took me by surprise,” Tony groaned through gritted teeth, resting his weight against Steve.

Keeping a firm hold of Tony’s shoulders, Steve turned him around to take a proper look at his injuries.

His breath caught in his throat.

They should’ve turned back while they had the chance. They should never have come in this far. Steve should’ve stepped in to help, he shouldn’t have allowed this to happen.

The front of Tony’s gray sweater was in shreds, torn apart by clawed hands. The cuts didn’t stop at fabric, but went deep into his chest, in a set of four nasty-looking wounds. The diagonal lines of oozing red were broken in the middle by the metallic surface of his mechanical heart—but the attack hadn’t left that untouched, either. The claws had gouged dents in the device, exposing some of its inner workings.

“Tony—your _heart_ —” Steve stammered.

Tony raised a hand to his chest, running his fingers over the broken metal in the center of it. “Oh, no,” he breathed, his eyes going wide. “Oh, that’s not good.” 

He stood up, swaying, leaning on Steve for support. The bleeding cuts were rapidly staining his tattered shirt front a dark red that looked almost black in the dim light.

“We need to get out of here right now,” Steve said matter of factly. “Get help for you.”

“I might not have time for that,” Tony said, glancing at his chest, sounding panicked. “It shouldn’t be like this. It should be mending itself. It’s—I think I’m running out of power.”

Steve couldn’t let the worry get the better of him. They’d fix this. They had to. “What do you need?” he asked.

“A power source of any kind. Electric outlet. Anything,” Tony said hurriedly. “The lights are on, that means either the place is connected to the grid or there’s a generator running somewhere. Heck, if it comes to that, you can lift me up and I’ll jack myself into the lamps’ power cables, but I’d rather not.”

“No, that’s not a good plan,” Steve said. The second creature could return any minute, in the worst case bringing company with it. They needed to get to a more secure position, and he needed to take care of Tony’s injuries; the wounds looked bad enough to threaten his life on their own.

“I think we walked past some doors a few junctions back,” Tony suggested. “That’d be a place to start.”

“Good call. Let’s do that,” Steve said.

He pulled Tony’s arm over his shoulders, and put his own arm around Tony’s waist. Together they stumbled along the corridor, backtracking their earlier steps.

  


* * *

  


The doors were farther away than Tony had thought—or then again, maybe it just felt that way because they were moving so slowly.

He was getting awfully light-headed, a darkness that had nothing to do with the lack of light looming at the edges of his vision. He couldn’t tell whether it was because he’d lost so much blood that there wasn't enough to go around anymore, or because what was left wasn't circulating properly, his heart faltering with the damage.

He couldn’t fathom how this was even possible. The creature’s talons must’ve been made of stronger stuff than keratin; this was the sort of harm he might’ve expected from Wolverine’s adamantium claws. He’d been lucky that the cuts hadn’t gone deeper—an inch more would’ve probably sent his blood spurting all over the landscape, with no chance of survival. A power issue he should be able to handle. Not like he hadn’t had those before.

They reached the first door. Steve raised his shield protectively in front of them and kicked the door in without even testing whether it was locked. Behind it, there were no monsters or other surprises, but a space that looked like a lunchroom: tables with a few scattered cups and plates on them, long benches by their sides, and a kitchenette in the far corner.

“There’s bound to be a wall socket there that I could use,” Tony told Steve, “But that’s hardly an optimal solution. Let’s check the other doors, too. We can always come back to this.”

The next door wasn’t far, maybe twenty feet ahead. “Bingo!” Tony exclaimed as he saw where it led.

The room was bigger than the previous one, and it was obviously a workshop, full of tools and pieces of mining machinery. Most of it looked surprisingly new, as if it had only been abandoned yesterday.

They stepped in. Tony let go of Steve and stumbled forwards, fighting the dizziness and weariness washing over him. Steve closed the door behind them, and went on to block it with a heavy shelf.

Tony tried to focus. He needed to sort this out before he passed out. He didn’t think he’d be able to fix the damage here, and he shouldn’t need to. When charged properly, the biomechanical organ would repair itself, but that might take a while. He really didn’t want to spend hours and hours sitting and waiting here. The best solution would be something that wouldn’t tie him down: an alternate power source that’d last him long enough to get out of this hellish place.

Something exactly like the car battery he saw sitting by the wall.

He sank to the floor by the battery. In a stroke of luck to balance all the bad things, it was plugged into what very much looked like a maintenance charger. It might actually be charged. He looked around. There must’ve been a multimeter somewhere in the room that he could’ve used check that, but what the hell. He’d find out soon enough anyway.

Normally, he used AC power to charge his heart, but it was an adaptive system. It’d deal with direct current. He was almost a hundred percent certain of it.

Tony grabbed the jumper cables conveniently lying nearby, detached the charger, and plugged the battery to his chest.

The initial jolt was a little stronger than he’d expected. The current blazed through him, and he whited out.

When he came to, he was lying on the floor, flat on his back, facing a blurry, concerned Steve.

“Tony? Come on, don’t close your eyes again,” Steve was saying, his voice tense, his hand on Tony’s cheek.

“Okay,” Tony croaked, struggling to make his eyes focus. “I think that’s better.” He put a cautious hand to his chest to feel for the cables. Still there, securely connected.

“You could've warned me first. Gave me quite the scare,” Steve scolded. “Is the power issue fixed?”

Tony felt marginally better, overall. Since he didn't feel like he was being electrocuted anymore, the system must have adjusted properly to its new power source. He knew this wouldn't be enough, though. “Not fixed. This isn’t a solution, it’s a stopgap measure. Takes over for the inbuilt battery. Hopefully it’ll keep me on my feet until we can get out of here.”

“All right,” Steve said, not looking very reassured. “I saw a first-aid cabinet in the back wall. Just stay put for a few, let me take care of those cuts, and then we can talk about heading out.”

“Yeah, I’ll lie here and rest for a bit,” Tony said, and closed his eyes as he waited.

Steve returned soon with supplies, helped Tony sit up, tore away his ruined shirt, and went on to bind the wounds. As always, he worked with the efficiency of a man used to dealing with battlefield injuries, and it didn’t take long before he’d swathed most of Tony’s upper body in bandages, heedful of the battery cables. He finished by handing Tony an intact shirt—a thick, coarse cotton one that might’ve been white once, now stained with engine oil. Very cozy.

Getting dressed wasn’t a whole lot of fun, especially since it meant he needed to momentarily disconnect the cables. Had to be done, though; he had no desire to march through the dank corridors wearing nothing but gauze. Unplugging gave him an instantaneous woozy, drowning feeling that passed as soon as he’d reconnected himself.

“Towards the surface, then?” he asked, smoothing the hem of the shirt over his waist.

“If you feel up to it,” Steve replied, eyeing him appraisingly.

“I’m not going to get any better sitting here,” Tony said. “Let’s go.”

He stood up slowly, arms wrapped around the battery. Steve hovered right by his side, ready to step in if needed. Tony felt shaky, but not quite as faint as before. The battery was doing its job. It was damn heavy, though. That and the constant pain of his wounds meant that walking would be extremely slow.

Steve put a supportive arm around Tony’s back again, and they made their way across the room. Steve pushed the shelf blocking the door aside with his foot, never letting go of Tony.

Tony held his breath as they opened the door, half expecting for a monster to stand waiting right behind it.

There was nothing there. Just the empty corridor, quiet and eerie.

“We first came here from the right,” Steve said, as if thinking aloud.

“Yes,” Tony agreed. “And then to the left, close to the end of the passage.”

“All right. Nice and easy does it,” Steve said, and started steering them along the tunnel.

They made it past two junctions, three long stretches of passage, without anything out of the ordinary, until they came across something Tony was sure he hadn’t seen before. He would’ve paid attention to it if he had.

There was an opening in the left-hand wall that wasn’t like the others: the regular hole cut into the rock almost instantly turned into a much larger passage, round, with rougher walls. Tony couldn’t see very far along it, since there were no lights in its ceiling. It didn’t look like a mine tunnel; it looked like a natural cave passage, maybe one that the miners had accidentally run into. He could even spy a few stalactites hanging from the ceiling.

A cold wind blew from the cave, and with it, Tony thought he could hear—

“We need to get away from that,” Steve whispered harshly.

They began to back away, stepping as softly as they could.

There were shapes moving in the dark, coming into focus as they got closer to the light shining in from the mine passage. Pale figures, almost human, yet not quite, with pointed ears and sharp claws. Several of them. Tony could count at least four.

_Oh, no. No, no, no._

Tony was in no shape to fight, and he knew it—it took most of his energy just to hold on to the car battery. His hands were tied. There was no way he was going to be able to fend off monsters. He couldn’t run, either.

“Tony. Stay behind me,” Steve said, and followed his words by pushing Tony away. He pulled his shield from his back, taking a defensive stance, blocking the narrow mine tunnel between Tony and the entrance to the cave passage.

The first two creatures had stepped out of the passage and turned towards Steve. These looked clearly bigger and more muscular than the two they’d fought earlier, one of them almost as tall as Steve. Had the ones they’d run across before been adolescents?

The creatures lunged for Steve. He parried, but there were others behind them. Not four, but six now, and Tony thought he could see even more of them in the passage. Too many. For all his experience and enhanced abilities, Steve was still just one man, and these beings were something straight out of a nightmare. He couldn’t fight all of them alone.

Tony looked around desperately for anything he could use as a weapon.

“Tony, you’ve got to run! Go! Get away!” Steve commanded, not looking back, his focus on the enemies.

“I can’t just leave you!” Tony began to protest.

“You have to! You need to get out, warn people, seal off the entrance to this place,” Steve shouted hurriedly.

Though Steve still wasn’t looking at Tony, just talking to him must’ve been a distraction, because one of the creatures got through; Steve yelped as the claws cut into his side.

“Tony! Go, before it’s too late,” he pleaded once more.

Tony took a few stumbling steps backwards. Steve was right. This place was dangerous, and it was their duty as Avengers to make sure no one else would fall prey to these creatures—but he didn’t want to flee. He needed to help Steve.

There were three prone creatures at Steve’s feet, now, but another five were attacking him, and they had drawn blood. Multiple cuts marred Steve’s costume and the skin beneath. 

One of the monsters managed to grab hold of Steve’s shield arm. Another beast took the opportunity, its claws slashing across Steve’s neck, slicing through skin—Steve let out a muffled howl, and—

Steve’s blood fountained in an arc from a severed artery, coating the nearest creatures in crimson.

There was no helping him. It was already too late.

This couldn’t be happening.

Unable to look away, dazed and numb, Tony backed off until he reached a corner, ducked around it, and fell on his knees. He felt as if he’d been the one struck. This wasn’t happening. He couldn’t take it. Steve couldn’t be—

Steve sagged, only kept upright by the creatures holding on to him. The one that had grabbed his arm bent closer, its teeth closing around his shoulder, and another beast joined it, seizing his forearm, tearing, pulling, until—it—it was ripped right off. Steve’s arm. Oh god. No.

More creatures were moving in, each of them eager to get their share.

Tony curled forward over the battery and threw up.

He didn’t look again. The sound was bad enough.

Somehow, at some point, he got to his feet, leaning against the wall.

He needed to get away. Needed to follow Steve's last orders to him. He started shuffling along the corridor, away from the carnage. Away from the death of the greatest of the Avengers; the man he had loved more than himself.


	3. Chapter II

### Chapter II

For someone so tiny and running with bare feet, the girl was moving superhumanly fast, like a little ghost in her pale green dress, her long blonde hair flying behind her. Steve could barely keep up with her, making his way through the twilit woods, never getting any closer.

The edge of the forest brought him to an overgrown road leading to a gaping hole cut into a cliff face. It had to be the entrance to a mine, and the child was running straight towards it.

“Wait! You shouldn't go in there,” Steve shouted at her, trying to make his voice commanding, yet friendly and reassuring at the same time. He pulled off his cowl, to make himself appear less threatening.

The girl stopped and looked back at him, the fear evident in her big green eyes and the curve of her lips. “No! I won't let you take me,” she cried out, turned around, and disappeared into the dark mine passage.

Steve considered his options. Should he call for assistance, bring in the other Avengers? It’d take time before any of them could reach him. The girl would be long gone, then, and who knew what kind of dangers she might meet in the mine. Steve could imagine there’d be shafts she might stumble into, and sharp, rusty mining tools, never mind the simple risk of getting lost in the darkness that would surely be very frightening to a child.

His best bet would be to catch the girl before she strayed too deep underground.

Not wasting more time on contemplation, he ran after her again. The mine tunnel took him by surprise: he thought it’d probably lead to a vertical drop with an elevator. Instead, he found himself on a steeply sloping ramp, lit by fluorescent tubes, with railway tracks in the middle and stone stairs by the sides.

The girl was hopping down the stairs, two at a time, still keeping up such a pace that Steve was half worried she’d stumble and fall down the rest of the way. She didn’t, though, her feet as steady as Steve’s as she fled towards the bottom of the ramp, passing several landings with passages leading to the sides.

“Stop! It’s okay, you don’t need to be afraid of me,” Steve called out.

She ignored him, leaped down the final stairs to the level ground at the bottom of the ramp, and headed to the left, into a smaller tunnel.

Steve kept following her. The bottom-level passage also had lights, so he still didn’t need to use the flashlight he carried at his belt. He could see the girl disappear into yet another tunnel at one of the many junctions. The rock seemed honeycombed with countless passages crisscrossing at right angles, the sort of place that could very easily confuse one’s sense of direction.

Before Steve reached the turn she’d taken, his eyes landed on something out of place on the floor. Bones. He crouched to take a closer look. There was a skeletal hand on the ground, some of the finger bones broken. They also had what seemed an awful lot like bite marks on them. Looking further, Steve saw a few more scattered bones—were those ribs?

This was giving him a very uneasy feeling.

He stood up again and ran after the girl at full speed, worried he might’ve lost sight of her. Instead, he found her waiting at the end of the next passage, facing him.

The fear had disappeared from her face, giving way to an expression Steve could only call nefarious, with a twisted smile. “Catch me if you can, old man!” she told him in a sing-song voice, and laughed, the sound unexpectedly loud as it echoed in the empty corridor.

Steve sprinted after her, but she was moving again, just as fast as before, if not even faster, easily staying out of reach, leading him through countless turns.

He had no idea what was going on here, but obviously it wasn’t what he had first thought: he was not chasing a scared child. She was not what she seemed. Maybe he should just drop it and turn around. It very much felt like she was taking him into some kind of a trap, perhaps trying to purposefully confuse him with the twisty route she was taking, to lose him in these passages. Maybe those bones were from a victim of hers.

He wasn’t going to turn around. He was Captain America, he was an Avenger, and if she was a threat, it was his job to contain it, to capture her before she could harm anyone else.

There was a flash of white at the end of the next corridor he turned into, but it didn’t look quite right. Not like the flowing hem of her dress, but something larger than her. He couldn’t see any sign of her anymore.

Wary now, Steve took up his shield and inched forwards, watching and listening closely.

He reached the end of the passage—and suddenly found himself facing white, sightless eyes and a hissing mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.

The creature slashed at him with clawed hands. He deflected the hit with his shield, but more followed, instantly, his opponent moving so fast he couldn’t get a proper idea of what it even was. It was shorter than Steve, skeletally thin, and looked almost human, but not quite, its skin very pale, like something that had never seen sunlight.

It managed to get a hit through, its claws slashing at Steve’s face when he hesitated just a second, assessing his enemy. Steve returned the blow with a sharp kick, sending the creature staggering backwards. Before it had time to recover, Steve followed with a fist to the jaw that made its head snap back violently. It keeled over, unmoving.

Steve looked around. The passage around him was entirely quiet again, no sign of anything moving. Had the girl turned into this creature? Had she been a shapeshifter?

He crouched by the creature. It didn’t seem to be breathing, and there was a pool of blood spreading beneath its head. Looking at it, he thought it was exactly like the kind of thing he might expect to see living underground: big ears and a flat nose with large nostrils, for using senses other than sight when the lights were out, slender limbs so it could slither through all kinds of little cracks in rocks, and sharp teeth and claws to prey on the poor souls beings that were lured down here. He could easily picture this creature as the thing that’d gnawed at those bones he’d seen earlier.

The conclusion he was coming to was that either this thing had actually been the girl, or the girl had been bringing down new victims to the creature. Either way, the creature was now dead. He couldn’t be sure which was the case, and he couldn’t be sure this was the only one of its kind, but to go through all these tunnels and make sure they were safe, he’d need help. He needed to get back to the surface.

He turned around, trying to retrace his steps. Somehow, the passage looked different going back. Not in any hurry now, he moved slowly, constantly on guard in case of new attacks.

He heard a noise from a side passage, not at all like the snarl of the creature, nor the silvery laughter of the sinister little girl. Instead, it sounded like a stifled sob.

Sneaking as cautiously as he could, shield in hand, Steve headed in the direction of the sound.

This was a simple, narrow passage, with no junctions at all. At the end of it was a slightly enlarged section, a dead end—and a man sitting on the floor, knees drawn up. Oddly enough, he seemed to be hanging on to a car battery, with cables leading from it to his chest, disappearing amidst bloodstained bandages. But it wasn’t just any man.

It was Tony.

  


* * *

  


  
  


  


* * *

  


Tony had finally lost it. He’d been sitting here for too long, trying so hard not to think about things. Not to think about Steve.

Steve was standing in front of him.

Of course, it couldn’t really be Steve. Steve was dead, Steve was—a snack for man-eating cave monsters, slaughtered, butchered and gone for good. Whatever Tony was looking at, the Steve-sized, Steve-shaped thing that was perfectly unharmed but for a cut on one cheek, his cowl pulled back to reveal his beautiful face—it wasn’t Steve. It couldn’t be.

It wasn’t real. Tony was imagining things. Happy hallucinations to see him through his last moments.

What was real was the lone, pale figure creeping inevitably closer behind this not-Steve, with the soundless, elegant gait of a predator, its claws ready tear into Tony’s flesh and finally end this.

“Tony?” not-Steve said, in a small, surprised voice.

“St—” Tony began, on reflex, because it sounded so much like real Steve would’ve, and he wanted so much for this to be real, although the remaining dregs of his rational mind kept reminding him it couldn’t be.

The creature was barely a few feet away from not-Steve. It was blind, so it wouldn’t see him, but surely it would hear him if he spoke. Assuming the sound wasn’t just in Tony’s head, which it could well be.

“Shhhh!” Tony hissed, putting his index finger to his lips.

The creature reached towards not-Steve, its claws almost brushing his hair.

“What?” not-Steve said, and just as Tony pointed a finger towards the thing, he seemed to notice something was amiss, and flashed into action.

He moved just like Steve. He spun around, lightning-fast, and swung the shield in a graceful curve at the creature. It tried to dodge, but managed it only partially, the shield colliding with its shoulder.

This was one of the bigger creatures, not quite as muscular as Steve, but probably as tall, had it been standing straight instead of that characteristic crouch. Not an easy opponent—none of them were, but since it was alone, not impossible, either. Wouldn’t have been for the real Steve, and wasn’t for not-Steve, either.

After a few of blows exchanged to little effect, not-Steve finally got the upper hand, landing a kick to the creature’s ribs that made it double over, allowing him to finish it off with a hard punch to the temple.

Tony shrank closer to the wall, hugging the car battery against his chest. Its top edge dug painfully into his wounds in a much needed reminder of reality, because what he was looking at couldn’t be real. His eyes were fixed on not-Steve, his mind utterly blank.

Not-Steve walked over to Tony and settled on his knees in front of him, taking in Tony’s sad state with wide eyes, his expression a mix of confusion and worry. “Tony? What are you doing here? What happened to you?”

“What happened to _me_?” Tony repeated, swallowing back the hysterical giggle that was trying to build up at the back of his throat. “Let’s talk about what happened to you. You died! You—I saw those things tear you apart and _eat you!_ You’re not real. You’re not Steve.”

“What? What are you talking about?” Not-Steve frowned. “I just ran into this place, following a child. Alone. You’re not supposed to be anywhere near here.”

“No, we followed her in together, hours ago!” Tony said, no less confused. “And then you died.”

“I think I’d remember that. I promise you, I’m not dead.” Steve reached out to put a hand on Tony’s shoulder.

Tony jumped at the touch, a shiver running through him. The weight of Steve’s large, gloved hand felt entirely real. He placed his hand over Steve’s, giving it a tentative squeeze. It was solid, the leather as familiar as ever under his bare fingers.

It could easily still be something or someone who wasn’t Steve—countless ways that could work out: skrulls, other shapeshifters, LMDs, magic messing with his mind—but this not-Steve was so exactly like Steve, from the way he’d fought that creature to the way he looked at Tony, that gaze making him feel a warmth he’d thought he’d never find again—how could that possibly be faked?

He wanted this Steve to be real, he wanted it so badly; he needed it, more than the air he was breathing or the damn battery. He was already stuck in a situation that he wasn’t expecting to survive. How much worse could it get, even if placing his trust in not-Steve turned out to be the wrong choice?

“Let’s assume, for argument's sake, that you really are Steve, and that we’re both right about what happened,” Tony began slowly. “What would that mean for the situation in general?”

Steve pulled his hand away and sat down next to Tony, his back against the rock, too, facing the empty corridor with the dead monster on the floor.

“That’d mean that there’s something very strange going on,” Steve said.

“It’d mean that either there are two of you, or that you died and came back,” Tony said.

“With no memory of anything that happened,” Steve added.

Tony was trying to think back to the time before the two of them had entered the mine, and oddly enough, he was drawing a blank, with only very vague memories of what’d led them to the forest outside.

“Steve,” Tony said, only realizing after he’d said it that his treacherous subconscious had already accepted this living and breathing not-Steve as real Steve. “Why are we here? And where exactly is here, anyway? Why were we chasing that girl in the first place?”

“Well, I thought I was…” Steve began hesitantly. “Uh, I’m not sure? I was chasing the girl, because I saw her and she fled—she was frightened, and clearly she had abilities, maybe she was a mutant—huh. This is odd. It really doesn’t add up, does it?”

“No. I can’t even remember how we got to that forest. Did we fly here? Why don’t I have my armor, but you’re in costume? None of this makes any sense,” Tony said, gaining momentum as he went on, things not so much clicking into place as starting to unravel, the house of cards falling apart with the first card gone from its base. “To be honest, this mine doesn’t make much sense, either. I can’t claim to be an expert on mining techniques, but I don’t think it follows any kind of a rational plan. It seems modern, but if it is, why all the walking-size passages, with barely any machinery? The lights being on is odd, too. Not to mention the monsters.”

“You’re thinking this isn’t real,” Steve said, following Tony’s train of thought as easily as he always did.

“I don’t see how it could be,” Tony said. “You died, and yet, there you are, barely a scratch on you.”

“To be fair, stranger things have happened,” Steve said, smiling a little. “It’d hardly be the first time someone came back from the dead. Just look at us? But yeah, I’m inclined to agree with you. Something isn’t right here.”

“This isn’t real. It’s all a bad dream.” Tony blew a long, relieved breath. He wanted to believe that. It was going to be okay. He wasn’t actually injured; Steve hadn't died. Everything would be fine.

“For a nightmare, it’s quite tangible,” Steve said, raising a hand to the cut on his cheek, then glancing at the bandages covering Tony’s chest. “What happened to you, Tony? You’re hurt. What’s up with the car battery?”

“A monster broke my heart,” Tony said. He couldn’t help smirking at his own pun. The whole situation felt far less dire, all of a sudden, the thought that this wasn't really happening making him almost giddy.

Steve didn’t smile, but looked at him with wide eyes and renewed concern. “Are you going to be all right, for the time being?”

“Should be. Haven’t bled to death or run out of power yet. Besides, now I’m wondering whether it would even matter if I did.”

If he died, would he just reappear, like Steve had? Or would he wake up? Maybe Steve had come back because this was Tony’s dream and Steve was just a figment of his imagination. Maybe he should’ve pulled the plug before Steve showed up. Maybe that would’ve stopped this and solved everything.

“As long as we can’t be sure, we’re going to assume it does matter and act accordingly,” Steve said seriously, as if guessing what Tony was thinking about. “Now, the real question is, if this is indeed a nightmare, how do we wake up?”

“I doubt there’s an easy answer to that. I can tell you from experience that wishing you weren’t here won’t help,” Tony said.

  


* * *

  


Steve felt torn. He was still on edge about Tony. He hadn’t been expecting to run into anyone familiar down here, and the previous events, with the strange little girl and the monsters, had left him distrusting his senses. Then again, everything about Tony felt entirely familiar, and he couldn’t not feel concerned over the fact that Tony was injured, probably much worse than he was letting on.

Seeing Tony hurt was high on the list of things Steve liked least in the world. He cared about Tony. Far too much, really, no matter how hard he tried to ignore those feelings. He knew they wouldn’t be returned anyway, so it was better to hold on to the strong friendship they shared, instead of wishing for something that could never happen.

“Right, you’d have already woken up if that worked,” Steve picked up the conversation.

“I’ve spent the whole time I’ve sat here thinking how much I don’t want to be in this place and how much I don’t want you to be dead—oh, wait!” Tony raised his eyebrows, his face lighting up. “Maybe that’s why you came back: because I wanted it so badly!”

“Could be,” Steve said, though he didn’t really believe it. Of course, he couldn’t see inside Tony’s head, but he was half thinking this must be his own dream, with Tony here only because of how much he meant to Steve.

“The whole thing comes down to that girl, doesn’t it?” Tony said.

“She does seem to play a big part in this. We wouldn’t be in this mine if she hadn’t led us here,” Steve agreed. “The problem is, I lost her in these tunnels. I haven’t seen her since I met that first monster.”

“It was the same earlier. At some point, we just couldn’t see her anymore, and she never showed herself again,” Tony said, pursing his lips. “We do know one place where she’s easy to find, though. If dying sends you back to the forest, she’s going to be there again.”

“Tony, no! We’re not even going to consider that,” Steve said adamantly, putting his hand on Tony’s forearm and giving it a tight squeeze. “Not when we can’t be sure that’s how it works. I won’t have you risk your life. Besides, even if you were right, it wouldn’t help. I don’t remember dying, or anything else that you say happened when you came down here with that other me. The girl would just lead us back down here, and we’d be stuck in the same mess.”

Tony brought a hand to his forehead, massaging his temples. “Ah, damn, you’re right. It wouldn’t work.”

“Did you try looking for her, after you’d lost her?” Steve asked.

“Not really. We ran into those monsters, and this happened,” Tony waved a hand at his chest. “We were kind of preoccupied after that.”

“Maybe she’ll show herself again if we start looking for her,” Steve suggested. “Even if she doesn’t, there’s one thing we know for sure. Waiting and talking isn’t going to bring us any closer to a solution.”

“Spoken like the one and only Captain America,” Tony said, the shadow of a smile on his lips. “All right, let’s go. I’ve certainly spent more than enough time sitting here.”

“That’s the spirit, Shellhead,” Steve said encouragingly, stood up, and offered his hand to Tony.

Tony eyed the hand ruefully and got up, leaning against the wall, both arms around the car battery. He didn’t seem too steady on his feet, but he did manage to step away from the wall with Steve’s arm around his waist. Steve took his shield in hand again, holding it protectively in front of them. They began limping ahead, along the sole tunnel leading out of the dead-end room they’d been in.

The next tunnel was just as Steve remembered it, long, straight and full of countless side passages. Any of them could have monsters hiding right behind the corner, or the girl they wanted to find. Steve was listening closely, but so far, all was quiet but for the background buzz of the lamps, the sound of dripping water, and Tony’s raspy breathing next to him.

“Which way?” Tony asked. “I don’t even remember where I came from anymore. I wasn't really paying attention at the time.”

“I first came here from the left,” Steve said. He’d gotten here, walked past the passage Tony was in, met a monster, and turned around. “I last saw the girl in the passage at the end of this one. That was a while ago, though.”

“To be entirely honest with you, if you remember which way is out, I wouldn’t mind going that way,” Tony said, sounding embarrassed about it. Steve couldn’t blame Tony for wanting to head for the exit; he had the air of being at the end of his rope. Steve couldn't imagine how horrible it must’ve felt to spend all that time here, alone, thinking he might never see the light of day again.

“I think it's as good a pick as any, the girl could be anywhere by now. To the left it is,” Steve decided.

They kept walking. It was slow going, both because Tony couldn’t move very fast, and because they were constantly on guard, scrutinizing each side passage for anything out of the usual.

Steve was certain the next turn was the second-to-last junction, but the turn brought them to a tunnel that looked different from what he remembered, shorter and wider.

“I don’t think this is right,” he told Tony. “Let’s try the next one, maybe I got it wrong.”

The next junction, at the end of the passage, led into a tunnel that seemed more familiar, though Steve was sure it wasn’t the one he’d come from. He must have gotten a few turns mixed up in his head. They kept walking along that tunnel, Steve trying to rack his brain for what the next turn should be.

Some twenty paces along the passage, Tony stopped in his tracks and grabbed Steve’s forearm in a crushing grip. “No, no, no, back away, we need to back away,” he urged in a pleading whisper, taking a step backwards.

Steve looked ahead, trying to understand what had made Tony suddenly panic like that. He couldn’t see any movement along the passage. There were, as always, several junctions, though the one that was closest to them looked different from the rest. Instead of the usual passages crossing at straight angles, with identical openings in both walls, there was only one hole, in the right hand wall. Steve couldn’t see very far along that passage, but right inside the sharp-edged, chiseled entrance, the walls turned into rougher stone, with soft, wavy forms that didn’t look hewn, but natural.

“What—” Steve asked softly.

“Not now,” Tony whispered sharply, and kept pulling Steve backwards.

They hadn’t quite reached the start of the passage when three of the pale creatures stepped out of the cave entrance Steve had been looking at, their sightless faces turning towards Steve and Tony, heads tilting and nostrils flaring.

Tony didn’t stop, and Steve went with him, walking slowly away from the beasts, hoping against hope that they’d let them go. They reached the end of the passage and turned to the left just as one more creature joined the three, and the things took off at a purposeful jog towards Steve and Tony.

“This is exactly what happened the last time,” Tony said, sounding desperate. “There was a cave passage, just like that, and they kept coming, there were at least eight of them, you pushed me back, and—there were too many.”

“I only saw four,” Steve said resolutely. “We can handle this.”

Tony looked at Steve, an unreadable expression flashing across his face before giving way to a steely frown. “Right. We’ll handle it.”

Then, the monsters were upon them. Steve stepped in front of Tony, because Tony was obviously in no shape to fight.

The passage they were in wasn’t very wide, with only room for two of the monsters to properly attack Steve at once. He could hold them off easily, protecting Tony from them, but actually knocking them out was more difficult. Whenever he managed to make one of them stumble back, another showed up to take its place.

The fight might have gone on for much longer, but unexpectedly, Tony stepped to Steve’s side, and before Steve could get a word out, lifted the car battery with both hands and smashed it into the nearest monster’s face. The creature collapsed to the ground, unmoving. Somehow, Tony still managed to hold on to the battery, pulling it close again.

“Tony! Don’t! Are you out of your mind? Stay back!” Steve cried out.

“I’m not going to let them take you again!” Tony shouted back, his voice bordering on manic.

There were two monsters on the ground, now, but four still standing—another pair had joined the original group. Steve saw the look on Tony’s face, one of such unstoppable resolve that he knew there was nothing he could say to sway it. Then, another monster launched itself at Steve, pulling all his attention back to the fight.

He fought frenziedly to bring down the remaining enemies as fast as he could, driven by the need to keep Tony safe. Tony was fighting next to him, in what would normally be a reassuringly familiar formation. Now it was everything but. Every time he heard Tony grunt in pain, it felt like a punch to the gut, and he couldn’t help getting distracted and glancing to the side.

The worst sound wasn’t a grunt, but a much softer, surprised gasp, followed by a snap and a crash.

Steve kicked the creature he’d been fighting in the face, sending it to the ground, and turned to look. Tony was desperately trying to hold back the last of the creatures with his bare hands.

The car battery was on the ground, on its side, no longer connected to Tony’s chest.

Steve rushed forwards, grabbed the monster by the shoulders and drove its head to the wall with such force that its skull caved in instantly. He tossed the lifeless creature aside without a second glance and turned to Tony.

Tony had slumped to the ground, his face drained of all color. His shirt and the bandages beneath it were stained through with blood. Some of it must have been from the older wounds, now reopened, but most came from a terrible gaping gash that split his shirt front in two, running down from his shoulder to his hip. Steve quickly turned his gaze from it, because it obviously went deeper than skin, with a glimmer of white where it cut across his ribs.

Steve gathered Tony in his arms, his throat tight, tears stinging at the corners of his eyes. He was devastated, and at the same time, furious with Tony—what the hell had he been thinking, barging into the fight like that?

“Tony, you—you reckless—you should’ve—”

“Couldn’t,” Tony said, his voice soft, his breathing ragged. “I couldn’t go through that again. Rather die myself—than watch that again.”

“You have to hold on. I’ll get the battery. We’ve dealt with the monsters, I’ll carry you back to the surface, we’ll—”

“Steve,” Tony said, looking at him with a tired, resigned expression. “It’s too late. The battery’s broken, it’s no good now. I—” He stopped and groaned, face twisting in agony. “I’m not going to make it. It’s fine. I’ll come back.”

“What if you’re wrong about that? We can’t know for sure!” Steve said, desolate.

“We can’t,” Tony repeated. “That’s why—I—before I—” Tony reached out with a shaky, bloodstained hand, grabbing hold of Steve’s collar.

Steve didn’t realize what was about to happen until his mouth was pressed against Tony’s. Tony’s lips were cold, too cold, not warm and passionate and full of life like they had always been in his dreams. They had the coppery taste of blood.

Tony let go and fell back, listless, gazing up at Steve, his face so full of emotion Steve almost couldn’t bear to look.

“ _Tony_ ,” Steve breathed. “You—”

All those years Steve had wasted, thinking that Tony couldn’t possibly feel the way he did.

“Always wanted—to do that,” Tony said, clearly struggling to breathe. “Steve—I’ve always—” He gasped, eyes wide, and went limp in Steve’s arms.

Just like that, the unique spark of intelligence and courage behind Tony’s brilliant blue eyes was gone, nothing left but an unseeing, lifeless stare.

Steve pulled Tony closer, pressed his face into Tony’s tousled hair, and let the tears come.


	4. Interlude

### Interlude

“Alas, we have yet to see any sign of her,” Thor announced, his handsome face downcast. “Rest assured, we shall keep on looking, for as long as it takes.”

“I don’t doubt that you will, Thor,” Jan said, offering him a reassuring smile.

“I must say, I am dismayed,” Thor went on. “It is as if she has disappeared off the face of Midgard. I do hope that is not what has happened, because if she has, finding her will take much longer.”

Wanda very much hoped so, too. Captain America and Iron Man—or rather, Tony Stark, without the armor—were lying in their respective beds in the Mansion’s medlab, just as unconscious as when they’d been brought in several hours ago. The rest of the Avengers still had no clue what was wrong with them, aside from it being a spell or a curse of some kind. Catching the culprit might be the only way to set things right.

“If you need more hands to help in the search, just let me know. We do have reserve members we can bring in,” Jan suggested.

“I shall do that. For now, I think there are enough of us,” Thor said. “Keep me informed if the situation should change at your end.”

“Of course we will, Thor,” Jan said, and hung up the call.

Wanda wished she were out there with the others—that way she would’ve at least felt like she was doing something. Perhaps she’d have been able to trace the villain magically. Of course, magic was the exact reason why she’d returned to the Mansion with Jan: this was a magical crisis, and out of the current team roster, she was the only one with that kind of talent. So far, it hadn’t been useful at all; everything she’d attempted had led to nothing.

A shrill alarm tone cut through her thoughts like a blade.

Wanda looked up, her eyes instantly going to Cap. A little over an hour ago, they’d almost lost him. It had been sudden and completely unexpected; unlike Tony, whose vital signs had been fluctuating a lot, giving them constant cause to worry, Steve had seemed perfectly fine until his health had taken an abrupt nosedive. Dr. Foster, the physician they had called in to help, had described it as “all the symptoms of a massive bleed without a drop of blood spilled”. It had been close, too close—he’d actually been in cardiac arrest, and the doctor had fought for several tense minutes to bring him back. Thanks to her skills, and possibly also Steve’s super soldier physique, he had pulled through. They had been hoping he’d wake up afterwards, but instead, he’d gone back to the magical slumber, no closer to regaining consciousness.

This time, though, it wasn’t Steve, but Tony. Even from across the room, Wanda could see the flashing alarms on the screen by his bed.

Dr. Foster had already hurried to Tony’s side. Wanda and Jan got up and rushed to join her.

“What’s going on?” Jan asked, staring at Tony’s still form, not a hint of the usual cheeriness in her voice.

Tony didn’t appear any different as far as Wanda could see: he was perfectly still on the bed, his eyes closed, his face expressionless. Cautiously, she felt for the magical energy surrounding him, but it was unchanged as well. The nature of this curse was entirely unfamiliar and incomprehensible to her. She had tried channeling her chaos magic to push against it, but as much power as she now held at her fingertips, it had been like trying to move a concrete wall with her bare hands. She was hesitant to shove much harder, since the curse had such obvious repercussions for its victims’ health. As long as she didn’t understand how it worked or what it was doing to them, she might all too easily end up making things worse.

“If only I knew,” Dr. Foster answered Jan, her face grave. “It's all too similar to what happened to Cap. His heart’s stopped, and I have no idea why.”

Now that Wanda looked more closely, she realized that Tony was a different kind of still from before. He wasn’t just motionless and in a deep sleep, his chest rising and falling steadily, but entirely too still. Still as death; not breathing at all.

“But you can do the same thing you did with Cap, right? Bring him back?” Wanda said urgently, wondering why the doctor wasn’t already working on it.

Dr. Foster and Jan exchanged a glance that Wanda couldn't figure out at all.

“It’s a life-and-death situation—we might as well tell her. Maybe she can help,” Jan said in a hesitant voice.

“I wouldn’t consider breaking confidentiality in any other circumstances, but for now, I’ll be happy if he’s around to complain about it,” Dr. Foster agreed.

She pulled away the sheet that had so far been covering Tony up to his neck. They’d stripped his clothes as well as his armor when they’d brought him in, leaving his chest bare. In the very middle of it, buried in his body, sat a metallic _thing_. It looked like you could plug something into it, and it very much seemed like a permanent part of him, the skin completely unblemished around it.

“What is that?” Wanda asked, dismayed. She knew Tony had had his share of health troubles over the years, but this—she had no idea what she was looking at. Was he part machine, somehow?

“The reason I can’t treat him like I did Steve,” Dr. Foster replied curtly. “His heart. He’s only given me the very basic details about it—I hadn’t even seen it before today. It’s pretty obvious epi and chest compressions aren’t going to cut it. I doubt there’s anyone except himself who knows how to fix it if it’s not working right. It’s certainly beyond my expertise.”

Wanda couldn't blame Tony for wanting to keep this to himself. Sharing his identity as Iron Man was one thing. Being so completely dependent on a piece of technology—she could easily imagine he wouldn’t want to reveal such a weakness, or that he might worry people might be put off by it. She couldn't help wondering when and how this had happened, and why he’d needed to resort to such an extreme measure.

“It’s got nothing to do with what I’m good at, either,” Wanda said unhappily. “But I’ve been able to influence technology before. I can try.”

“I hate to admit it, but I really don't know what to do,” Dr. Foster said. “Anything you can think of is worth a shot.”

Wanda held a hand above Tony’s chest and closed her eyes, feeling for the magic around him. It surrounded him, a cocoon of sinister energy, entirely invisible to the naked eye but impenetrable to her other senses. Very carefully, she brought up a small hex, trying to will that metallic heart to beat again. The magic never reached it; her hex dissipated uselessly into the air, like water hitting a scorching surface and vaporizing instantly. She shook her head.

“I still can’t get through,” she told the others miserably.

“It’s all right, Wanda,” Jan said. “We’ll have to solve this non-magically. Come on, we're not going to give up this easily. Could it be a power issue?”

“It’s only been hours since we charged it, and from what he’s told me I thought it should last for several days,” Dr. Foster said, looking doubtful. “But we might as well give it a go.”

Wanda had spent some time trying to consult the library she had at her disposal about what might be going on. The charging thing must have happened then, before she had joined the others in this room, because she surely would’ve noticed and asked what on Earth was going on.

Dr. Foster crouched to the floor to pick up a power cable. She slotted that into the contraption in Tony’s chest. A shudder went through him when it clicked into place, but aside from that, it didn’t seem to do anything at all. The high-pitched alarm was still ringing in Wanda’s ears.

“No change,” Dr. Foster stated the obvious.

“There has to be something else we can try,” Jan said frantically.

“There is one thing,” a polite, measured male voice joined the conversation. Wanda raised her gaze to see that Jarvis had appeared by Tony's bedside. He’d been in and out of the room several times, occasionally bringing refreshments, always so discreet that it was easy not to notice him coming and going.

“It’d better be quick, we’re running out of time,” Dr. Foster urged him.

“There’s a hard reset,” Jarvis said. “I’ve never done it nor seen it done. I don’t know if it’s even been tested, but Mr. Stark has told me how to do it, in case of an emergency.”

Dr. Foster stepped aside and beckoned Jarvis to move closer. “Sounds good to me. Go on, Mr. Jarvis.”

Jarvis walked over to Tony’s side and unplugged the power cable. The butler looked apprehensive, his usually detached and professional demeanor giving way to a concerned frown, his hands shaking as he placed his fingers on the metal surface of Tony’s artificial heart, on what must have been very specific locations, one hand on each side of the device, fingers slotting into depressions.

“Here we go,” Jarvis announced, and pushed with both hands.

Wanda waited with baited breath, certain the others were doing the same.

Nothing happened.

Tony was dying, and they were all out of ideas. Wanda felt numb, struggling and failing to grasp it. This couldn’t possibly be how it was going to end for Iron Man, she thought, glancing at Tony’s slack, deathly pale face. After the countless fights he’d seen, after everything he’d been through, to perish so pointlessly, never waking up again—that simply couldn’t happen!

Jarvis pulled back his hands, his expression past worried, closer to anguished, matching Wanda’s frame of mind. “I was sure it would work,” he said despondently.

“Let’s try with the power again,” Dr. Foster said, and pushed Jarvis aside to reconnect the cable to Tony’s chest.

This time, the effect was striking: Tony convulsed on the bed, his back arching and his head jerking back to thump against the pillow.

The alarm stopped.

Tony drew in a great gulp of air, like a drowning man surfacing at the last minute, before his breathing settled into rapid panting, almost as if he were running. Dr. Foster placed an oxygen mask over his face, and peered at the monitors, a cautious smile on her lips. “That did it! He’s stabilizing,” she announced.

“Thank god you knew how to do the reset, Jarvis!” Jan cried out, and leaped to grab the butler in a hug.

Jarvis looked awkward, but smiled, nevertheless. “We’re lucky Mr. Stark has entrusted me with the information. There are very few who know. I can understand his need to keep this rather unusual health information private, but—”

“But I’ve been his personal physician, and helped the Avengers often enough. He should’ve told me,” Dr. Foster said, disgruntled. “I’m definitely going to have a word with him about this, once he wakes up.”

The doctor sounded entirely convinced Tony would come around, sooner or later. Wanda wished she could believe it as easily herself. For now, Tony was alive, just unconscious, the same as Steve, but who knew when the next crisis would strike. They still had no inkling what caused them to crash like that, let alone how to stop it from happening again.


	5. Chapter III

### Chapter III

He should have been wearing his armor.

The girl was way faster than Tony, flying through the forest like a tiny, pale green sprite, her feet barely touching the pine needle covered ground. He was running as fast as he possibly could, and she kept gaining more of a lead on him. Having a heart that wouldn’t tire like an ordinary one didn’t help very much when his entirely human lungs just couldn’t drag in enough oxygen. He tried to push on, force his feet to move faster, so he wouldn’t lose sight of her.

They were approaching the edge of the forest. At least that meant he’d be able to follow her more easily, without tree trunks constantly blocking his view.

He stepped from the shade of the trees to open ground, and found himself on an overgrown road leading to a large mine tunnel that burrowed into the depths of a cliff face. Of course, she was heading straight towards it.

“Hey! Wait! Don't go in there!” Tony shouted, his voice not as loud as it could’ve been, what with him struggling to catch his breath.

The girl stopped in front of the tunnel, her light silhouette a striking contrast to the black void behind her, and turned to look at him. Her green eyes were wide with fear, her long, blonde hair ruffled. “I won’t let you take me!” she shouted, her voice tremulous yet defiant, and fled into the darkness.

She was as bold as she was fast, this girl—she couldn’t be older than ten, and there she was, choosing to venture into a menacing underground passage without looking back.

Tony wasn’t exactly prepared for exploring an abandoned mine. He patted his pockets. He had a multitool, a card wallet, and his Avengers card. The latter was a comforting shape beneath his fingertips, with the promise that he could call in the others at any moment. He wasn’t going to do that, though, because it would take too long for anyone to get here, just as it would take too long for him to fetch his armor—he had no idea what awaited beyond that entrance, but it was certainly no place for a frightened child. He couldn’t let her venture too far on her own.

He stepped closer to the entrance, peering in. He didn’t know what the girl’s abilities were, aside from superhuman speed. Would she be able to see in the dark? He definitely wouldn’t, and he didn’t have as much as a Mini Maglite on him. Surprisingly enough, it seemed like he might manage without one, though: he saw that the passage was lit by a line of fluorescent tubes in the ceiling, enough of them still working that they provided a decent amount of light.

The girl was skipping down a long flight of steeply descending stairs lining the wall of the large, sloping rectangular tunnel, following the mine cart tracks in the middle of it. Tony hurried after her. Maybe the dark, daunting passages would make her slow down, offering him a chance to catch up.

As he made his way down the stairs, he noted that the place didn't look as decrepit as he’d expected. The cart tracks weren't rusted at all, and there was only a fine coating of dust on the floor, without a single cobweb in sight. The dust was broken by more footprints than just the girl’s. Someone else must’ve come through here, not too long ago. Disconcertingly, all the prints seemed to lead deeper into the mine, none of them out. Maybe whoever had left them was still in.

Here and there, the stairs came across a landing, but there were no signs of anyone having left the main passage, and the girl kept going, straight on, deeper. She only slowed down a little when she hit the lowest level, a T-junction with smaller passages on both sides. After a brief moment of hesitation and looking around—not nearly long enough for Tony to reach her—she was on her way again, sprinting into the left-hand passage.

Tony kept going, leaping down the last three steps and careening around the corner to follow her.

This tunnel was much smaller than the one containing the entrance ramp, which made it seem more oppressive. Tony saw the girl take another turn, to one of countless side passages opening in both walls. Looking after her, his eyes landed on something on the floor that he couldn't quite make sense of, a set of white, thin objects. A few steps closer, and he realized he was looking at bones.

Momentarily distracted from the chase, he crouched to take a closer look. He could see finger bones, ribs and smaller fragments he couldn't recognize scattered in the dirt. Many of them seemed to have tooth marks on them.

A shiver went through his spine. A strange child, an abandoned mine, gnawed bones—had he stepped into a horror film?

He tried to tell himself this wasn't weirder than any other mission. He’d seen far more mysterious things. The bones were probably left there by some wild animal—never mind that they looked distinctly human.

The unsettled feeling wasn’t easy to shake, but Tony ignored it as best he could. Worried he'd lost the girl, he hurried forwards again. He caught a glimpse of her at the end of the next corridor, and heard her voice, light and melodic, calling out, “Catch me if you caa-an!” Carefree laughter followed, gratingly out of place in the dark, eerie surroundings of the mine.

The girl wasn't what she’d first seemed. No lost and frightened child would've sounded like that.

Something definitely wasn't right about this scenario.

Much warier now, Tony kept following her. Even though it was starting to feel like she was leading him into some kind of a trap, he probably wouldn't be able to figure out what was going on without catching her.

He felt utterly defenseless without his armor—without as much as a handgun. He didn't know what he was faced with, but he needed a weapon. Though he was focused on the chase, he tried to look around for anything he could use. A few turns later, he noticed a spade resting against a wall. That’d do, lacking a better alternative. He picked it up, still taking running steps.

Ahead of him, almost at the end of yet another long, narrow corridor, the girl had taken a right turn. He picked up his pace. It’d be very easy to lose sight of her here, or to get lost. He was fairly sure he’d memorized all the turns so far, but the tunnels looked almost identical. There were no landmarks to help him find his way, except for the occasional door in a wall or tool on the ground.

He got to the junction, and saw her again, only a few dozen feet in front of him.

Tony was barely ten steps into the next tunnel when a sound from a side passage made him stop. He turned to look, spade raised like a club—and found himself face to face with a tall, muscular figure clad in blue, the white star in the middle of his chest torn and bloodied but perfectly recognizable, just like his handsome face and short, blond hair, matted with blood and sweat as it was.

“Cap?” Tony said, flabbergasted. He lowered his makeshift weapon, but he was still wary. Why would Steve be here? Was it really him, or was this some kind of a trick?

“Tony!” Steve said, sounding strangely choked. “Thank god, Tony, you’re back! You’re all right!”

Steve covered the distance between them in a couple of hurried strides, and wrapped his arms around Tony in a crushing hug.

Tony had nothing against enthusiastic hugs from Steve, but the situation was throwing him off big time. He patted Steve’s back awkwardly. “Glad to see you too,” he rasped through the vice-like grip around his ribs.

“Oh, Tony, I—you don't have any idea, do you? You don’t remember any of it,” Steve said, his lips almost brushing Tony’s ear. His voice was raw, as if he were inches away from tears. He loosened his hold a little, but didn't let go.

“Remember what? What’s going on, Steve? What’re you doing here?” Tony asked in turn, trying and failing to understand what Steve was on about. The last he remembered, Steve should’ve been safely in New York, nowhere near this dank underground place. Not standing there, looking like he’d gotten stuck in the middle of a skirmish between Silverclaw, Wolverine and the Beast.

“I—you—” Steve stammered, stepping back and finally releasing his grip. “Wait. Were you after the girl?”

“I was, she was right there, just before you—” Tony began, glancing along the tunnel he’d been following. He couldn’t see her anymore.

“We really, really need to catch her. This might be the best shot we’ve had so far,” Steve said urgently, and headed off at a run in the direction Tony had indicated.

Tony took off as well, but with Steve running at top speed, he had no chance of keeping up. “Steve! Wait! Tell me what the hell is happening!” Tony shouted after him.

“No time!” Steve replied, not turning to look back, scanning the side passages. “Come on! We catch her, and I should have a much better explanation for you.” He must’ve caught a glimpse of the girl then, because he took a sudden turn to the left, disappearing into a side passage.

“You’d better,” Tony muttered to himself.

He couldn’t even begin to imagine what that explanation might be: none of this made any sense whatsoever. Somehow, Steve had known that Tony might be down here, that much was obvious. Steve had also been worried that he might not be okay, for whatever reason. If he really was Steve at all. Tony wasn’t sure he could trust anything he saw. Still, as he hurried into the side passage just in time to see Steve take another quick turn, he thought that no matter what the situation was, having someone who seemed exactly like Steve for company did beat being stuck down here all by himself.

  


* * *

  


Steve was beginning to lose hope. He’d been down here for too long. Being stuck in these endless, dimly lit, monster-infested tunnels alone did things to your head. He kept trying to work his way closer to the entrance, but it was difficult to be sure if he was making progress.

Although Tony had told him what he’d witnessed before, that he’d seen Steve die and come back, hearing about it wasn’t the same as seeing it himself. Maybe they had gotten it all wrong, maybe that wasn’t how it worked at all.

Tony dying in his arms had been one of the worst things Steve had ever gone through. It had been all too real, the pain and love in Tony’s eyes, that flash of fear on his face at the end, and his last, shaky breaths. His blood on Steve’s hands, the lingering bloody handprint on Steve’s collar where Tony had grabbed hold of it to pull him into that first and final kiss.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d spent, sitting there, holding on to Tony’s lifeless body, surrounded by the remains of the monsters that had taken Tony from him. As much as he'd tried, he hadn’t been able to convince himself Tony would come back.

Eventually, he’d finally let go. Even if Tony was gone, he wasn’t about to give up. Now more than ever, he needed to understand what was going on, and for that, he needed to find the girl.

He hadn’t found a trace of her, but he’d found more than enough monsters: a sole one, a trio, a pair. Each fight left him more tired. Though he had avoided any immediately life-threatening injuries, the multitude of cuts was beginning to get to him, the blood loss no longer something he could just ignore.

As the minutes passed—close to an hour since he lost Tony, according to his watch, if it was even trustworthy down here—and he walked through tunnel after tunnel, constantly on guard, he grew more and more certain that Tony wasn’t coming back.

And then, he did.

Steve almost couldn't believe his eyes. There Tony was, walking through a passage crossing the one Steve was in. There wasn't a scratch on him. His clothes were perfectly intact, not a drop of blood in sight. He was in far better shape than Steve, really.

When he turned to look at Steve, all Steve wanted to do was to embrace him and to return that dying kiss, to make it a proper one this time—but Tony’s eyes were wide with surprise, his expression making it clear how confused he was to see Steve. Steve could imagine the look on his own face had been much the same when he’d first run across Tony here.

Tony didn’t remember. He had no idea of anything that had happened.

As overwhelmingly relieved as Steve was to see Tony, the fact that Tony didn't remember made the reunion bittersweet. He hugged Tony as tightly as he dared, glad beyond words to hold him in his arms, living and breathing and perfectly fine—and he couldn’t figure out what to say.

Tony had come clean about his feelings in what he’d thought might be his last moments. Would it be fair to bring that up now? Besides, in this odd nightmare, could Steve even be sure this Tony felt the same way? What if that kiss had been some kind of a fluke, an anomaly, and this new Tony wouldn’t share those feelings?

Whatever the case, it would have to wait. The most important thing was to catch that damn child and to get at least some kind of an idea of what was going on.

Steve ran, as fast as he ever had, the weariness and the pain of his many wounds completely forgotten. Tony wouldn’t be able to keep up, but he should be able to follow. Steve had to push back his worry and his need to make sure Tony stayed the way he was, safe and sound. He needed to focus, and to hurry.

When Steve heard an all too familiar snarl from a side passage, he didn't even slow down.

“Tony! Keep going! Watch out for the monsters, but keep going!” Steve shouted. 

From what he gathered, both times before, they’d lost the girl because they’d run into these things. He couldn’t afford to let that happen again, no matter what.

Tony had come back once, Steve told himself. That meant that if the worst came to pass, Tony would come back again. The only way to make sure they were both safe and no longer stuck in a cycle of gruesome death by clawed hands would be to figure out the situation properly.

He didn’t know how fast the monsters could run. If they reached him, he’d just have to deal with them. If they went for Tony—if there was just the one, Tony could deal with it. If there were more, they’d be deep in trouble either way.

He was gaining on the girl; she was only two dozen feet in front of him. He had to keep running.

Behind him, Tony let out a surprised yelp, immediately followed by a clang and a thud. Steve glanced over his shoulder, and saw that Tony had decked the monster and was running again. Relieved, he pushed on.

After the next turn, he was only a few paces away from her. Steve leaped forwards and tackled her to the ground. The girl squirmed, but he grabbed a firm hold of her skinny arms and lifted her in front of him, her feet off the ground.

Tony came to a halt behind them, panting. Steve didn’t hear the sounds of anyone or anything following him. They were probably safe from the monsters for the time being.

“Let go of me!” the girl screamed, wriggling and kicking at Steve. The impact of her tiny, bare feet was much harder than he would’ve expected, but nowhere near hard enough to make him lose his grip.

“I’m not going to do that before you’ve answered a couple of questions,” Steve told her sternly.

“All right,” the girl said and stopped struggling. Her lips curled into a nefarious smirk. “But you might not like the answers.”

“Try me,” Steve said. “Who are you?”

“Just a lost little girl, far away from home,” she said, simpering.

“Yeah, and I’m the tooth fairy,” Tony put in. “I doubt we can get a word of truth out of her, Steve.”

“We have to,” Steve told him.

There was no one else here who could give them those sorely needed answers. His fingers tightened around the girl’s arms. Even if she wasn’t what she seemed, Steve wasn't going to hurt her—beating confessions out of his enemies wasn’t something Captain America did—but she probably didn’t know that.

“Ow!” she complained, her small hands batting uselessly at Steve’s forearms.

“This isn’t real, is it? Any of it?” Steve demanded.

“Reality’s a matter of perspective,” the girl replied, not sounding child-like at all. “Maybe it’s not your everyday world, but still, if you’re hit, don’t you hurt?” She aimed a kick right at the worst cut on Steve’s right flank. It stung badly, and he couldn’t help wincing, a fresh trickle of blood dripping down his side. Still, he didn’t let go.

“I saw him die,” Steve said, nodding towards Tony. “But there he is. That, to me, says this isn’t real.”

“You what?” Tony blurted out.

The girl looked at Tony, her grin growing even more sinister, her teeth bared. “If he died, he died, and that is the truth. As real as anything. If he came back, that’s only because someone revived him.”

Steve’s stomach plummeted. If what she said was true, and if he interpreted it correctly—had Tony _actually died_? Not only here, but in the real world outside of whatever this nightmare was? Even if he’d been resuscitated, that was way too close! And there he’d been thinking, mere minutes ago, that maybe it wouldn't have mattered if Tony had died a second time. Of course, Steve couldn’t really trust what the girl was saying, but she seemed all too pleased with the idea for her to be just attempting to spook them.

“I’m not going to even pretend to understand what’s going on, but the obvious question is, how do we make it stop?” Tony asked, seemingly oblivious to the implications of what she'd just revealed.

“You can’t! There’s no way out!” the girl declared gleefully. “In the end, you will lose. How many times can your friends bring you back to life? Sooner or later, your bodies will give out,” she poked a forefinger at the bloodstained star on Steve’s chest. “And then, you’ll be gone, for good.”

Before Steve got another word out, he caught a soft shuffling sound that was neither him nor Tony.

“Oh no! Behind you!” the girl exclaimed, making a mock horrified expression.

Steve had to look. She grabbed at the chance to escape: she bit his arm and kicked at the wound in his side for the second time. Together with the distraction of seeing four monsters on the approach that made Steve’s hold slacken just enough for her to slip free. Steve didn't go after her. She’d probably already said as much as she was going to. Her soft, running footsteps soon disappeared behind him.

The four creatures were barely a dozen paces away, three of them approaching at a slow walk, their teeth bared and clawed hands held in front. The fourth was crawling along the ceiling like some pale, twisted mockery of Spider-Man.

Tony had already taken a defensive stance, the spade he was using as a weapon raised in front of him. “So, what exactly are we fighting?” he asked Steve in a low voice.

“I don’t know, but they’re vicious. Blind, otherwise very keen senses. Fast and strong. Don’t let your defenses slip; watch out for those claws. They can slice through metal,” Steve summarized.

Tony raised his eyebrows at the last words, and Steve wondered if he got the implications. Probably. He didn’t comment on it, though. The monsters were almost within striking distance. “Weak spots?” Tony asked.

“Pretty much like humans,” Steve said.

He wasn’t going to wait for the creatures to make the first move. He flung his shield at the one clinging to the ceiling. It dodged at the last minute, but the throw had the effect he’d hoped for: the creature let go and landed on the ground, making the three others scatter from it in momentary disarray. The shield bounced off a wall, and Steve caught it on the rebound.

One of the creatures launched itself at Steve as soon as his hands had closed around the shield. Luckily, he was ready, and could parry. Next to him, Tony was facing another monster, and he seemed to be doing okay, swinging his spade almost like a two-handed sword. Though he was a little concerned, with Tony so unprotected, without his armor and using an improvised weapon, it also felt nice to be fighting next to him, as so many times before. He had coached Tony, and he knew Tony was more skilled at hand-to-hand combat than most people realized.

For the next few minutes, Steve fell into a familiar battle focus, thinking only of the mass of sharp claws and teeth in front of him. He’d faced these creatures often enough by now that he knew their style well. They fought instinctively, like wild animals, not like trained combatants, which meant that their actions were often easy to anticipate. He should’ve been growing more proficient at besting them, but the weariness and his injuries were weighing him down. Nevertheless, it didn’t take that long before he’d dealt with two of them.

The third one was already down as well, and Tony finished the last monster by stabbing the sharp tip of the spade right below its ribcage. It sank deep, and Tony had to push at the monster’s front with a foot, pulling with both hands to reclaim his weapon. The creature fell back, but as it did, it lashed out with one of its clawed hands, tearing into Tony’s forearm.

The creature crashed to the ground next to the rest of its dead or unconscious pack, its hands clasped over the wound in its torso, coughing up blood. Tony stepped closer and smashed the spade forcefully against the side of its head. It fell silent.

Tony stumbled to lean on the nearest wall, breathing hard and looking stunned. Steve walked over to him, putting a steadying hand on his back.

“Jeez,” Tony groaned. “You were stuck down here fighting these things on your own?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t fun,” Steve said darkly. “It got you. Is it just your arm?” he asked, concerned. Tony’s left sleeve was torn from the elbow down, already soaked with blood from the cuts beneath.

“Yeah, just that, and I don’t think it’s as bad as yours,” Tony said, pointing a thumb at Steve’s right arm.

Steve had felt the pain when he’d been hit, but he honestly hadn’t realized it was that bad: there was a gash spanning his upper arm, from shoulder to elbow, deep enough for it to count among the worst of his injuries. He put the shield on his back and clamped his left hand over the cut, for what little good it did.

“We need to get to a safe location,” Steve said. “See to our injuries and talk.”

“Couldn’t agree more. You promised me an explanation,” Tony said. “Is there such a thing as safe down here, though?”

Steve looked at the passage around them. As usual, there were no distinguishing features. He couldn’t tell if he’d been here before, and even if he had, the geography of the mine didn’t always work like you’d expect. “I’ve seen a few doors, here and there,” Steve suggested. “An enclosed space should be fairly safe.”

Fortunately, it didn’t take them too long, searching the nearby corridors for a safe spot: they came across a door that opened to a locker room. At the back of it, another door was ajar, giving to what seemed like a communal bathroom. This would do nicely.

As Tony moved on to check the bathroom, to make sure there were no other entrances, Steve dragged a bench in front of the outer door to block it securely.

“All clear. It’s just you and me in here,” Tony declared as he got back. He was carrying an armful of towels, and tossed a few to Steve. “Was hoping for a first-aid kit, but no such luck.”

“Thanks.” Steve caught the towels.

All of a sudden, he was feeling incredibly nervous. He scrunched a towel up in his fists. This was it: his chance to talk things through with Tony, possibly the only one he’d get. He couldn't decide what he should say, let alone how he was going to say it.

Tony sat down on one of the benches, pulled back his sleeve and pressed at his wounds with a folded towel. His eyes weren’t on the injury, but on Steve. “So. Start from the top. What the hell is going on?” Tony prompted.

  


* * *

  


The two parallel cuts in Tony’s left forearm were deep and throbbed painfully as he pressed a towel against them, hoping to stem the bleeding. They weren't as bad as he’d first feared, but they would make using that arm uncomfortable, and he’d probably need stitches. If they ever got out of here, that was. Except if this wasn’t even really happening, which didn't sound all bad to him.

Steve didn’t answer Tony’s question right away, but took his time. He sat down on the benches across from Tony and gingerly peeled off his gloves and shirt. The multitude of cuts blemishing Steve’s torso stood out in sharp contrast to his fair skin and sculpted muscles, which Tony tried very hard not to ogle at.

Steve folded up one towel into a long pad, pressed that against the nasty cut in his arm, and wrapped another towel around it to hold it snugly in place. He wasn’t looking at Tony at all, to the point that it seemed intentional. There was something off in his demeanor, like he was nervous and unwilling to have this conversation. That wasn’t like Steve, and it was starting to make Tony anxious, too. Tony had already heard that Steve had, somehow, seen him die, and he’d already faced the monsters—what could be so much worse that Steve wanted to avoid talking about it altogether?

“Okay. From the beginning,” Steve said, at length, his gaze settling on some point on the lockers to Tony’s left. “I met you, earlier, and you told me that we’d first followed the girl down here together. The monsters attacked them—I mean, us—and you were injured quite badly. A little later, I was killed in another fight.”

“Wait, what? You died, too?” Tony asked, confused. The whole story was outlandish, but he’d known to expect that. Steve dying, on the other hand, was something he hadn’t seen coming.

“That’s what you told me. You, uh, said they ate me, and trust me, the look on your face was enough to convince me that you saw it happen,” Steve replied. His eyes finally met Tony’s, his expression haunted.

Fuck. As if the creatures hadn’t seemed creepy enough otherwise. Tony could all too easily imagine it, considering those knife-like claws and needle-sharp teeth. It was probably a blessing he had no memory of earlier events.

“So, you died and came back,” Tony said. Better not dwell on the macabre details.

“Apparently, yeah. The first thing I remember is being in the forest, chasing the girl. And that alone says there’s something really strange about this scenario, because I can’t tell you how I got there,” Steve went on. He seemed relieved to digress. “If I asked you how you ended up in the forest, would you be able to tell?”

“I thought I drove there. I even considered going back to the car to pick up my armor. But now that you ask,” Tony began slowly. As he tried to think back on what had happened before, he wasn’t sure about anything anymore. Dismayed, he realized he couldn’t come up with any details at all. “Shit. Yeah. I don’t even know where here is, let alone why I’m here. It’s like there actually wasn’t anything before the forest.”

“Well, I don’t know where we are, either, and I only have a vague idea that I got here on my bike,” Steve said. “It’s all very hazy, just enough that you don’t realize anything’s wrong if you don’t focus on it. We talked about this earlier, me and the other you, and came to the conclusion that this can’t be real.”

“Yeah, I can’t see how it could be. The girl did sort of admit that, too,” Tony agreed. “What is it, though? A virtual reality? A dream?”

“It feels like a nightmare to me. I don’t know if we have any way of figuring that out while we’re in it,” Steve said thoughtfully. “Whatever it is, what really bothers me is what she said, that dying here is as real as anything.”

“Your mind makes it real,” Tony quoted. “Ha, we’re stuck in the Matrix.” He couldn’t help smirking a little in spite of everything.

“The what?” Steve repeated.

“Oh, come on, Cap, you must've seen the movie? It was really big a few years back. The one with humanity trapped in VR by evil robots. If you die virtually, your body dies in the real world, because it can't live without the mind,” Tony recapped.

“Right, the one with, what's his name, that actor with about two facial expressions?” Steve replied with the slightest hint of a smile.

“Hey, Keanu Reeves was okay as Neo,” Tony complained. “But yeah, that one.”

“I guess that’s sort of the scenario we’re dealing with. I don't like the implications at all,” Steve said, his expression turning gloomy again.

“On the plus side, it does mean that someone's looking after us,” Tony said.

“That's got to be the team, and we couldn't have better people taking care of us,” Steve said. “Still, no matter what they do, what she said, she's probably right. I’m no medic, but surely they can only bring us back so many times.”

“Better not get killed again, then,” Tony declared. Obviously much easier said than done, in this place. “You still haven't told me how I died. Might help me avoid a repeat performance if I knew.”

“It was just another pointless fight. I won’t let it happen again,” Steve replied. Taking up that topic seemed to make him all anxious again: it was evident in the way he was worrying his lower lip and staring at his toes, the body language entirely out of place on his usually confident figure.

“Steve?”

“Look, uh, Tony. There’s something I need to tell you.”

Steve got up, stepped closer, and went down on one knee in front of Tony. Ridiculous as it was, Tony’s first impression was that he was about to propose, which made zero sense. It was probably the combination of all that nervousness and kneeling, not to mention the way Steve was looking at him, as if he were the only thing in this twisted, unreal world that mattered. He had no idea what to expect, but all of a sudden, there were butterflies in his stomach.

“When you were dying—” Steve began, then paused. “See this? This was you,” he motioned at his neck.

Tony hadn’t been paying attention to the splash of carmine at Steve’s neckline, since it hadn’t particularly stood out among Steve’s injuries, but now that he did it looked like the tracks of bloody fingers sliding over his skin, right where the collar of his costume would’ve been. Tony let go of the towel to place his fingers over the marks, and they did seem to match.

“You were dying, and though we hoped you might come back, we obviously couldn’t be sure, so the last thing you did, you—” Steve reached out to grab Tony’s collar with his good hand, pulled Tony close, and brought their lips together.

Tony was too baffled to react at all for maybe two seconds. Then, he followed his instincts, kissing Steve back with the feelings he’d been struggling to keep in check for years. It was chaste, close-mouthed, yet just as good as he’d imagined, if not better, Steve’s lips strong and warm against his.

After a few beats of bliss and joy, Tony’s conscious mind caught up, and he pushed Steve away, horrified. He had kissed Steve. What the hell had he been thinking? In what world had he thought that would be okay?

“Oh, shit, I—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have,” Tony stuttered. “I was dying, surely that counts as a mitigating factor, but still—”

“Don’t you want to?” Steve said, frowning.

“I did! I mean, I do. So much, you have no idea. But I know you don’t, so it’s hardly fair to—”

“Tony, for chrissakes! I didn’t exactly have to demonstrate, did I?” Steve exclaimed. “I kissed you, just now, not the other way around. Which part of that didn’t you get?”

“I—yeah, okay, right, you did,” Tony said, struggling to wrap his mind around the concept. “What I don’t get is why? I mean, you’re obviously not—”

“Who says I’m not? That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Steve was starting to sound frustrated. “I was perfectly fine with you kissing me and the only regret I had was that it was the last thing you did! Can you imagine how that felt? To lose you, right after you’d done it?”

Steve didn’t stop to wait for an answer, but moved closer, putting one knee on the bench next to Tony, his other foot between Tony’s legs. The hand on his uninjured side found its way behind Tony’s neck and pulled him into another kiss, more passionate this time. Tony tilted his head and opened his mouth, pushing out his tongue, and Steve didn’t resist at all, his lips parting to welcome it.

Steve was okay with this. Steve wanted this. Tony couldn’t believe this was happening. Maybe that was the dream. Creepy children and deadly monsters be damned, this was the most unrealistic thing that had happened since he’d found himself in that forest. This couldn’t possibly be the real Steve; he had to be some kind of a virtual construct from Tony’s subconscious.

Tony put his hands on Steve’s bare shoulders and slid them down his front, revelling in the feel of the superhumanly defined muscles he’d never ever thought he’d get to touch like this. Unfortunately, as much as he tried to mind the injuries, his fingers brushed the deep wound in Steve’s side. Steve winced ever so slightly—Tony might not even have noticed if his lips hadn’t been locked with Steve’s.

Tony froze, pulling his mouth away from Steve’s. “Sorry. Uh, we probably shouldn’t. You’re injured. Hardly the time and the place—”

“You’re injured, too. As long as you’re okay with this, I don’t care. We might not make it out of here alive. This could be the one chance we get. I say we take it.” Steve’s voice was husky, but urgent. As if to underline that and to show that a few cuts weren’t going to slow him down, he brought his right hand to Tony’s waist, not flinching at all, despite the injuries in his arm and his side.

This felt more tangible than any other daydream Tony had ever had. He’d be stupid not to go with it. He slid his left hand to Steve’s broad back, probably leaving a set of bloody fingerprints there to match the one on Steve’s front, and pushed himself up from the bench. Steve followed, standing up and pinning Tony against the row of lockers behind him, his thigh against Tony’s crotch. No doubt Steve could feel Tony was starting to get hard. Of course he was, this was incredibly hot, this was the exact opposite of a nightmare. And because in this fantasy, Steve wanted him just as much as he wanted Steve, Tony felt an unmistakable bulge where Steve’s groin pushed against his hip.

The contrast between the cold, hard surface of the lockers behind him and Steve’s warm, muscular body in front of him, rubbing against him just right, was thrilling. Tony barely noticed the pain in his forearm anymore. Steve smelled of sweat and blood, which probably should’ve been a turn-off, but somehow, it was the opposite: it made the situation feel desperate and primal. Heck, he might come from just this, fooling around like a teenager, clothes still on—he’d been fantasizing about this for so long—the number of times he’d jerked off thinking about Steve over the years was almost embarrassing.

“Is it okay if I—” Steve asked, his breath hot against Tony’s cheek, and finished the sentence by worming his hand between them, to tug tentatively at Tony’s waistband and the buttons there.

“Yes! Very okay!” Tony encouraged him, his voice thick.

While Steve worked to unbutton Tony’s jeans, Tony brought both his hands to Steve’s waist. “I assume this is okay too?” he asked, though he was pretty sure of the answer.

“Oh, yeah,” Steve said.

Tony quickly had Steve’s belt unbuckled and his pants and briefs pushed down. He took Steve’s cock in his uninjured hand. He’d seen Steve naked before, and he’d obviously known how big Steve was—pinnacle of human perfection and all that; pretty damn huge—but he’d never thought he’d actually get to touch—

—though damn it, he wasn’t really touching it now, either, was he? If the whole thing was some kind of a hallucination that built on his subconscious, Steve would feel like Tony imagined him to feel, not like he really felt—

The threatening tangent his mind was veering towards was happily cut short by Steve getting the last button open and freeing Tony’s erection. There was no room for any other thoughts in his head then, not with Steve’s fingers teasingly running along his length.

“Let me,” Tony said hoarsely, and took hold of them both, bringing their shafts together in his fist.

“Tony—I’m—I might not last very long,” Steve breathed, bucking his hips. He moved his hand to the small of Tony’s back, under Tony’s shirt, his fingernails digging into Tony’s skin.

“That makes two of us,” Tony managed, frantically stroking them both, precome making his hand slick.

Steve kissed him again, more aggressively than before, almost savagely, sucking their mouths together, stealing Tony’s breath. Tony’s injured hand found its way to the back of Steve’s head, grabbing at his short, sweat-damp hair.

If it had taken dying to get here, it had been well worth it, because Tony had rarely felt more alive than he did now, his upper body pressed so close to Steve’s he could feel Steve’s heart pounding against his chest.

Steve was the first to lose it, suddenly detaching his lips from Tony’s, gasping and letting out a low groan, his seed spattering between them. Tony put his free hand there, feeling the sticky mess, holy shit, he’d made Steve come—that was hotter than anything—hell, it hadn’t even taken much, Steve had obviously really wanted it—and that, with a few more tugs, brought Tony to climax as well, his brain shorting out entirely for several, ecstatic seconds.

As fantasies went, that had been both surprisingly understated and pretty damn amazing.

Drained and panting, Tony slumped to sit on the bench, his jeans still bunched up at his knees, his shirt filthy in the best possible way. He rested the back of his head against the lockers behind him. Steve took a seat by his side, their thighs pressed together.

The two of them sat in silence for a while, their breaths slowly evening out.

“I might not want to go back to the real world,” Tony finally said.

Through the fading endorphins, the wounds in his forearm were starting to make themselves apparent again. Their antics had definitely not helped with those at all. Tony picked up the towel from where it’d fallen on the floor, and doing so, half amused, half disgusted noted that his left hand was now stained with come as well as the earlier blood from the cuts.

“We could, you know, do the same thing in the real world,” Steve said softly. “Hopefully without any injuries. Maybe on a bed.”

“Yeah, if only,” Tony said wistfully. He didn’t believe for one minute that they ever would. Steve wouldn’t want this. Not the real Steve, out there in the real world.

“We just have to get out of here, somehow,” Steve added, probably misinterpreting what Tony was referring to. “Before we move on to that, though, were there any more towels where these came from?”


	6. Chapter IV

### Chapter IV

It turned out that the basins and showers in the next room actually worked, though the water was ice cold and smelled faintly of rust and earth.

“Alas, that rules out any hot and steamy shower action,” Tony noted, smirking.

Steve replied with an amused hum, failing to come up with anything witty. He was still too baffled by what had happened, struggling to properly take it in.

He’d had sex with Tony.

Even if it was some kind of a virtual scenario, it had felt as real as anything, and though Tony had seemed to enjoy it, Steve couldn't shake the nagging feeling that he’d somehow taken advantage of Tony. He’d made the first move, after all, while Tony had been hesitant. More than that, the situation they were in was anything but normal, and before this, it would never have crossed his mind to even consider getting it on with anyone under such circumstances. Then again, it had been great, and Tony seemed happy, which meant that, rationally thinking, Steve shouldn’t have anything to worry about.

They spent a while getting cleaned up and bandaging their wounds more securely with torn up towels. Tony declared his stained shirt a lost cause, and, instead of even trying to wash it, broke into several of the lockers before finding a new one that fit him. Almost too well for Steve’s liking, since the way its stretchy, dark fabric clung to Tony’s frame definitely caught Steve’s eye.

“All right, now that we’re presentable again so we won't offend the sensibilities of any monsters that might want to eat us, what next?” Tony asked, once they were both relatively clean and sitting down on the locker room benches. “Any ideas for an escape plan? Or should we just hole up in here and hope the others can get us out?”

Steve shook his head. “We don’t know if they can. No doubt they’ve been trying all along, but we’re still here. If it were easy, they’d have done it by now.”

“I don’t think we’ve been here for that long, though,” Tony said. “Going by what you’ve said, I’d guess that the previous me you met had been here for a couple of hours?”

“Something like that.”

“And you were with him maybe for another hour or so, before he died, and now, I’ve been here with you for, I’d say two hours, tops, which would make around five or six hours altogether,” Tony counted.

Tony had a point, but Steve wasn’t sure it held up to scrutiny. “We don’t know how time passing here relates to time in the real world. And since we forget everything if we die—” Steve paused. He hadn’t considered this alternative before, but now that the thought had crossed his mind, it was thoroughly disturbing, because it was entirely plausible. “Since we forget everything, we can’t know for sure how many times it has already happened. What if we’ve both already died more than once? What if this isn’t the second chance for us, but the third, or the fourth?”

Tony’s eyes went wide. “Damn, you’re right. There’s no way to tell. I only found out what the situation is because I ran into you and you’d been around longer. We could’ve already been at this for days without knowing it.”

They both fell silent for a bit, letting that sink in. Those bones close to the entrance—for all Steve knew, they might’ve been his or Tony’s! If every time they died here brought them closer to a final, entirely real death—

“In the end, all that means is that it’s even more crucial we don’t get killed again,” Tony broke the silence.

“And we really, really need to figure out how to stop the loop from repeating,” Steve added.

“The girl said that there’s no way out,” Tony reminded Steve. “If she was telling the truth, that means it comes down to what the team does, anyway, because we can’t free ourselves—but she could have been lying. The way she talked, it sounded to me like she’s running the entire show.”

“That’s how I felt, too. Like she has orchestrated everything, somehow,” Steve agreed. Something about what Tony had just said was nagging at him, like there was an important bit of information he was missing. “That was the exact wording she used, wasn’t it? That there’s no way out?”

“Yeah. I asked her how we could stop whatever’s going on, and she said that we can’t, that there’s no way out,” Tony said, then frowned, his eyes meeting Steve’s. “Wait, there’s a disconnect there.”

That was exactly what Steve had been thinking about, and he was glad Tony had picked up on the same thing. “You didn’t ask about getting out, but that’s what she replied with. Which suggests that getting out is the solution.”

“Getting out, as in physically getting out of the mine,” Tony continued the train of thought. “It sounds like a good starting point. If we can’t remember anything except for the mine and the forest, maybe the way to break free is to get away from both.”

“Yes! We need to get out of these tunnels. Then we’ll have time to think about things other than navigating this maze and avoiding monsters,” Steve said, feeling a fond warmth at how his and Tony’s thoughts seemed to be on the same track, complementing one another. “How well do you remember the path you took to get here?”

“I think I’ve got it all memorized, but I can’t be entirely sure. The girl was moving really fast and taking a lot of sudden turns,” Tony said.

“I know the feeling. To make things worse, the tunnels look entirely different on the way back, to the point that I think they might be changing,” Steve said. He knew he wouldn’t be able to find the way out anymore. All the time he’d already spent fruitlessly looking for it was proof enough of that. “An even bigger issue is, I think we’ve always run into the biggest hordes of monsters when we’ve been trying to get closer to the entrance.”

“Are you saying the place itself is working against us, to keep us in?”

“Something like that. So far, our track record for surviving fights with more than five of them at a time isn’t stellar.” Steve grimaced. “Both times that I know of, one of us has died.”

Tony didn't seem daunted by that, but determined, his eyes turning steely. “I’m going to need a better weapon than a spade. I think I saw just the thing.”

Tony walked over to one of the lockers he’d broken into earlier, pulled out a pickaxe, of all things, and gave it a tentative swing. “What do you think? Too Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?”

“Not great, but yeah, that should do more damage than the spade,” Steve said.

Tony didn’t return to the bench, but went straight for the door. “How about we go and get out of this damn cellar, then?”

Steve walked over to Tony’s side, and pushed away the bench that had been blocking the door. “All right. Any fights that we end up in, the strategy is, try to be as fast as possible. As soon as we’ve knocked the monsters out or incapacitated them so that they can’t follow, keep going. You’ll need to lead the way, since you’ve got a better idea which way’s out.”

“All right,” Tony acknowledged. He was already standing at a defensive stance, ready to meet whatever came out of that door.

Steve reached for the handle, but stopped right before opening it. “One more thing, and this is important. If we see anything that looks like a natural cave opening, we need to go the other way, as fast and quiet as we can. That’s where they came from when I lost you.”

“Okay. I promise, you’re not going to lose me this time,” Tony said adamantly. He put a hand on Steve’s arm, and caught Steve’s eyes. His expression lit up for a blink. “I wouldn’t want to forget that little moment we had here.”

Steve moved closer to Tony, to press their lips together in a quick kiss. “Me neither. Not for the world. Let’s do this.”

He turned away from Tony again and opened the door—to find himself facing two monsters.

The creature that was closer to the door pounced right away. Steve brought his shield up, moving as fast as his opponent. It slammed into the shield with so much force, it staggered back, dazed. Steve followed it out of the door, with Tony right behind him, pickaxe raised.

Steve easily dealt with the first creature while Tony swung his improvised weapon at the other one, managing to sink the sharp end into its neck. Tony wrenched the blade out, and the creature fell on its knees, blood spraying from the wound.

“That’s it! Leave it, Tony, we need to move!” Steve hurried.

They headed onwards at a jog, and soon found themselves back in the tunnel where they’d met the girl. There was no sign of the monsters they’d killed there, except for a few splashes of blood here and there. Others must have shown up to drag them away—probably to eat them, holding on to whatever resources they had in this otherwise lifeless place. The other Tony had implied that they ate people, after all.

They kept going, through one empty tunnel into another. They were still in an area they’d traversed together, and at each turn, made sure they both agreed on it. Every new passage they looked into, they stopped for a moment to see if there was anything unusual there. So far, so good: no sign of more monsters, nor cave passages. Soon, they passed the junction where Steve and Tony had been reunited. From there, it would all be up to Tony, since Steve really had no idea where the entrance lay.

  


* * *

  


From what Tony remembered, they couldn’t actually be that far from the entrance ramp; he couldn’t have been following the girl for more than ten or fifteen minutes when he ran into Steve, and from there, it had been maybe another ten. Altogether, it must’ve been less than two miles in distance.

After two more turns, they ran into more monsters. Luckily, there were only three, and the battle wasn’t very long. They survived it without further injuries, unlike their opponents. Tony could hear the dying shrieks of the creature he’d stabbed as they headed away, and he couldn’t help but feel distraught. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t delivered plenty of serious injuries over the years, but he wasn’t used to it being quite this gruesome. He wasn't used to fighting to kill.

They were getting closer to the entrance, he was sure of it. He’d seen no sign of the passages changing their configuration, like Steve had claimed. Tony couldn't help wondering if Steve had been imagining it, while in reality he’d just been distracted and desperate, stuck alone down here, the memory of Tony’s death fresh in his mind.

Once they reached the next turn, Tony had to reconsider his position. The passage they were peering into was the correct one. He was absolutely sure he’d come from there. He even remembered picking up the spade from an adjoining passage. And he was equally certain there hadn’t been a round-edged cave opening in one of its walls back then.

This was what Steve had warned him about: a connection to the monsters’ lair. They quickly backtracked their steps and paused to listen. No shuffling, no snarling, no sign that the creatures had picked up on their presence. Maybe luck was on their side, for once. They tiptoed backwards until they reached the previous junction, and headed into the tunnel parallel to the one with the cave opening. It would also take them in the correct direction—but it turned out to be completely blocked, maybe fifty feet in.

“What the hell?” Tony groaned, struggling to keep his voice low.

It looked as if the passage had collapsed: rubble filled it up to the ceiling, not far ahead of them. He hadn’t noticed it before, and he was half convinced it hadn’t been that way, but he couldn’t be sure. They certainly hadn’t heard or felt anything to indicate a cave-in.

“Like I said,” Steve remarked darkly. “This place follows some weird twisted nightmare logic of its own. This isn't going to be easy.”

They retreated to the previous passage and even further, to the previous crossing. The tunnel leading the correct way seemed more promising than the last two. The only untoward thing about it was that it seemed even darker than the dimly lit corridor they were currently in. That wasn’t exactly unusual, since the amount of light in these passages constantly varied depending on how many of the fluorescent tubes happened to be working.

“What do you think?” Tony asked. The further back they went, the further they’d be from the exit. It’d make sense to pick this one.

“Let’s keep our eyes and ears open and see if it goes,” Steve said, tight-lipped.

Moving as softly as they could, each step slow and cautious, they advanced into the gloomy corridor. There were no openings in either wall, just the regular, even, man-made stone surfaces Tony had seen more than enough of by now. The illumination kept getting progressively worse: every fourth lamp lit, then every fifth, until finally, a good distance into the passage, they came to a point where all the lights went out entirely for a stretch so long that the next point of light was a faint, distant gleam.

Tony cast an uneasy glance at Steve. It wasn’t as if he was afraid of the dark, but this darkness felt so oppressive and sinister, he honestly didn’t feel happy walking straight into it.

Thankfully, Steve was better prepared than Tony. He pulled a little flashlight from his belt and turned it on. The bright, narrow beam revealed nothing but an empty corridor in front of them, each wall perfectly smooth. They listened for a moment, but heard nothing aside from the ever-present buzz of the still functioning lamps behind them and the plop of dripping water somewhere in the distance.

“Seems safe,” Steve whispered.

Tony nodded. He still didn’t like it, but there was no rational reason to turn around. The road was clear in front of them, and if this passage went all the way through to the next, it was almost the home stretch.

They pushed forwards into the darkness, Steve’s light painting flickering shadows on the walls. The passage felt colder, somehow, but it had to be just in Tony’s head; lacking the waste heat from the lamps couldn’t possibly make that much of a difference. Tony barely dared to breathe, and the hair at the back of his neck was standing up. He had to fight the ridiculous urge to reach out and hold Steve’s hand. This place was really starting to get to him.

The next illuminated stretch of corridor was right in front of them. From close by, Tony saw that it was only a single lamp, with more darkness waiting beyond it.

Just as they reached the lit part of the passage, there was a soft sniff ahead of them.

They froze. Steve pointed his light ahead. The passage in front of them was just as empty as the part they’d already traversed.

A slim, white shape dropped soundlessly from the ceiling and landed in front of them. Only then did Tony’s eyes find the rift, up in the ceiling ahead of them, where the light turned into darkness again. It was barely more than a crack, so narrow that Tony didn’t think he could’ve fit through it, but these skinny creatures definitely could.

Steve already had his shield out, the flashlight still in his other hand. Tony raised his weapon.

Another creature emerged from the fissure, and the two began to advance on them. His main focus on them, waiting for them to strike, Tony saw a third one crawl out of the hole and creep along the ceiling.

The corridor was barely wide enough for the two of them to fight abreast. Steve stepped forwards and made the first move, sending a kick at the first creature. Tony waited, ready to step in—and then, there was a crash, a shower of sparks, and the sole working fluorescent lamp went out.

The darkness would’ve been complete without Steve’s flashlight. Instead, its wavering beam lit a corridor that seemed to be teeming with pale limbs. Tony was pretty sure there were at least five creatures, altogether, though it was difficult to be certain, with the creatures on the move. One of them leaped past Steve and lunged at Tony. Reacting instantly, he swung his pickaxe at it, not the sharp tip but the blunt end, and managed to knock the creature to the side. Another followed right behind the first one, moving more cautiously.

Steve’s flashlight fell to the floor with a clatter, and for a panicked moment, all Tony could see were feet, before it went out completely.

They were in the pitch dark.

So much for tactical thinking. There was nothing but darkness, snarls, hisses, shuffling and the click of claws against ground here and there. He heard a swish as a creature lashed out at him, and tried to step aside, only to run into another that had somehow gotten behind him. Claws cut into his arm. He kicked forwards at where the first creature had been, and struck with the pickaxe at the one behind him.

The next minutes were a blur. He knew they were outnumbered and outmatched. These creatures lived in the dark and were adapted to it. They wouldn't even notice that there was no light. Still, he wasn’t about to give up, not as long as he could hold on to his weapon.

He fought on instinct, going by sound and feel, trying to interpret the slightest movements of air around him. He couldn’t tell how many creatures he was fighting, let alone how many he’d knocked out, but going by the shrieks, he had injured several of them. There was one on the ground close to him, unmoving, and he kept stepping on it, which nearly cost him his balance once. He wavered but held his ground.

Blood spattered on him, and he wasn’t sure if it was his own. Talons slashed at him. They were so sharp that he barely felt the hit as they sliced through his skin, the pain blossoming a few seconds later. Once it was teeth, instead: an entirely different, instant, tearing pain.

He fought with fury and desperation, more crudely than he would have in any other situation. This was pure survival. He wasn't going to die like this. He had to make it through.

There was another whoosh of something moving close to him. He swung at it without hesitation, and felt the sharp tip of the pickaxe sink deep.

Steve groaned.

_God, no!_

Tony’s blood ran cold, the ferocity and fighting spirit seeping out of him, leaving a suffocating horror.

He slackened his hold on the pickaxe, but a strong hand grabbed the blade and wrenched it out with a grunt of pain.

Tony gripped his weapon more tightly again. Something shuffled behind him, and as soon as he had the pickaxe to himself, he attacked. The creature screeched and went down with a thud. In Steve’s direction, the shield clanged, followed by another thump of a body hitting the floor.

Suddenly, the corridor was entirely silent but for the sound of his and Steve’s ragged panting.

“We need to get away. Forwards. Come on,” Steve said, in clipped, pain-laced words.

Tony made his way to Steve’s voice, put an arm around Steve’s back, and they stumbled in the direction that Tony assumed to be forwards. Still alive, both of them.

He saw a light far ahead, getting closer with each step. Steve was dragging his left foot, avoiding putting any weight on it, and the thought of that made Tony feel sick. It was his fault. He’d hurt Steve. Yeah, it had been an accident, but he’d been swinging wildly in the dark, frenzied and desperate—he should’ve been more careful. He could’ve killed Steve. It was still possible he had. He didn’t know what the injury was like. It wasn’t Steve’s only wound, either; Tony could feel the warmth of blood where his hand rested on Steve’s hip, and against his arm on Steve’s back.

Their journey through the darkness seemed to take forever, but eventually, they emerged in the light. It felt too bright for his eyes, brighter than most of the passages down here. Ahead of them, the tunnel continued well-lit for another hundred feet before reaching a junction.

Tony kept pushing Steve forwards, further into the lit part of the tunnel, as if the lights could somehow protect them from further attacks. Halfway towards the end of it, they stopped. Tony guided Steve to sit down, and slumped next to him.

As much as he dreaded it, he had to see how bad it was. His gaze swept over Steve’s other injuries—Steve’s torso was criss-crossed with cuts, so that his costume seemed more dark red than blue—before reaching his legs. There were less cuts on them, two on his right thigh—and on his left thigh, to the side, just above the knee, was the unmistakable hole that the pickaxe blade had made. Blood was pulsing out of it, a vivid, almost orange-tinged red under the better-than-usual lights. An arterial bleed, if Tony had ever seen one.

Fighting the renewed nausea that came with the overwhelming guilt, Tony pressed both hands over the stab wound. “We need to put a tourniquet on it,” he told Steve.

Steve gave a small nod, took off his belt and looped it around his thigh, above the wound, pulling it tight.

The bleeding dwindled with that, thankfully, but the wound was bad. Possibly lethal, even for Steve, considering how much blood he must've already lost over the past hours. Steve might be able to take more punishment than most, but at the end of the day, he was still human.

“I’m sorry, oh god, Steve, I’m so sorry—I should’ve been paying attention,” Tony said, his voice coming through as broken and miserable as he felt.

“It’s okay,” Steve said. That was bullshit, but of course Steve would say that. “You couldn’t see. You didn’t know. I’m just glad we both made it through.”

“Barely. You look terrible,” Tony said.

Steve made a face somewhere between a grimace and a smirk. “Well, so do you.”

Tony glanced down at himself. Steve was right, Tony was bleeding from numerous wounds as well. There was even a cut right across his chest, through his shirt, revealing a superficial scratch on the surface of his heart. Nothing to worry about; it’d close faster than any of the cuts on his skin. Whichever way you looked at it, Steve was in far worse shape than Tony.

“I’ll be fine,” Tony said. “You—”

Steve took hold of Tony’s hands and pried them away from the wound. “You can’t fix it, Tony. We can’t stop. We need to keep going.”

Steve was in no shape to keep going, but he was right. There was nothing more they could do here. Tony could spend the next half an hour tearing his clothes for bandages and trying to bind Steve’s wounds, and that would get them nowhere. More monsters could drop out of that rift in the ceiling any moment.

“Right. Yeah. Let’s move,” Tony said, and offered his less injured hand to Steve.

They couldn’t advance very fast, but the distance to the end of the passage wasn’t long, and it was soon covered. They stopped to peek around the corner, Steve leaning on the closest wall.

Looking to the right, Tony saw a length of passage that seemed to open into a wider space at its end. There were familiar, scattered bones on its floor. The home stretch. Against all odds, they had reached the passage leading to the entrance ramp. The distant glimmer of hope he’d been holding on to had turned into a simple, concrete goal that was right in front of him. They could do this. They were almost out.

He looked to the left, and the triumph was snuffed out as soon as he’d found it. He leaped backwards to hide behind the corner.

The passage, which he remembered as going on for long enough that its far end had been too dim to see into, was now entirely transformed. Less than two hundred feet from them, it opened into a cave. The zone between the man-made tunnel and the natural one was illuminated by the last of the fluorescent tubes, and it was swarming with monsters. With that quick glimpse, he hadn’t been able to count them, but there had certainly been more than five. More than ten. Too many. They might’ve noticed Tony and Steve already.

Steve put his hands on Tony’s arms and captured his eyes in an unwavering stare, his face as serious as ever, calculating and emotionless. Cold as ice. All Captain America, no Steve Rogers to be seen. “Tony. You have to make a run for it. I’ll hold them back.”

“I can’t! They’ll kill you!” Tony protested, panic creeping into his voice. This was exactly what shouldn’t happen. He couldn’t let Steve die. “We need to go back and find another way.”

“We don’t know if there is one. Look, I can’t run. I’m not sure how long I’ll last in another fight. Think logically. It’s the only option we’ve got. I’ll bounce back. I promise, Tony. I’ll come back,” Steve spoke hurriedly, his fingers digging painfully into a wound in Tony’s right arm.

Tony knew that was true. It was the course of action that made the most sense.

This might all be happening in his head, anyway, he reminded himself. He had, somewhere along the line, begun to think that this Steve might be the real deal after all, because he was indistinguishable aside from the small matter of having feelings for Tony. Then again, Tony knew Steve so well, wouldn't a Steve based on his memories be like that?

Whichever the case, if Tony got out, maybe it would all be okay. They’d both be fine. He needed to believe that, because the alternative was too awful to consider.

“Okay,” Tony said. “See to it that you keep that promise. I’ll get us out of here.”

He bent closer to Steve for one final kiss; a soft, tender one that he didn’t want to let go of, closing his eyes and trying to memorize the feel of every inch of Steve’s lips against his. How could something feel so tangible and yet so unreal at the same time?

Steve pushed Tony away gently. “Go, now. I’ll buy you as much time as I can.”

Blinking away the tears at the corners of his eyes, Tony took a deep breath and steeled his shoulders.

Together, they stepped into the next passage.

Steve turned left, to limp towards the horde of monsters that would—when they got their clawed hands on him—Tony shouldn't think about that. He couldn’t let himself get distracted.

Tony turned right, and ran towards the exit, as fast as his tired and mangled limbs would take him. The air was already starting to smell different, of pine needles and moss instead of the mouldy stench of these endless passages.

Behind him, the familiar metallic ringing of Steve’s shield against flesh and bone echoed in the passage, accompanied by the shrieks and snarls of the creatures.

He heard Steve cry out in pain. The sound tore into him, sharper and more painful than any of the talons that had left marks on his skin.

Tony ran, and he didn’t look back.

  


* * *

  


For someone so tiny and running with bare feet, the girl was moving superhumanly fast, like a little ghost in her pale green dress, her long blonde hair flying behind her. Steve could barely keep up with her, making his way through the twilit woods, never getting any closer.

The edge of the forest brought him to an overgrown road leading to a gaping hole cut into a cliff face. It had to be the entrance to a mine, and the child was running straight towards it.

“Wait! You shouldn't go in there,” Steve shouted at her, trying to make his voice commanding, yet friendly and reassuring at the same time. He pulled off his cowl, to make himself appear less threatening.

A figure stepped out of the yawning mouth of the mine, making both the girl and Steve stop in their tracks.

It was Tony, though Steve almost didn’t recognize him at first. Not because he looked like he’d been to hell and back, which he did, in his torn clothes, bleeding from more wounds than Steve cared to count, but because of the look on his face. Tony glared at the little girl with such raw despair and rage, Steve instantly thought he must be under some kind of mind-control. As if to further prove that, Tony raised blood-covered pickaxe with both hands, getting ready to strike at the girl.

“Tony! Stop! What’re you doing?” Steve shouted at him, moving closer, bringing up his shield. If he had to fight Tony to protect the girl, he would.

Tony looked up, his eyes meeting Steve’s for the first time, and in a blink, his expression shifted to the exact opposite of what it had been. It hardly seemed any less out of place: full of open, unrestrained affection, so sincere and loving it made Steve’s breath catch at his throat. Tony had certainly never looked at him like that—at least not outside of daydreams that he’d have given anything to make real.

“Steve,” Tony said, his voice rough. “You made it! You came back!”

“Back from where?” Steve asked, thoroughly confused.

The girl, stuck between the two of them, backed away from Tony and the gory weapon he was still holding high, until she bumped into Steve. She wrapped her little arms around him, clinging to him. “He’s crazy! He wants to hurt me! Help me, Captain America!” she cried out.

Tony’s eyes narrowed and focused on the girl again, the earlier, frenetic look returning to his face. He stepped closer.

“You can’t listen to her, Steve,” Tony pleaded. “She’s not what she seems.”

“ _He’s_ not what he seems,” the girl countered, holding on to Steve even tighter. “He’s not your friend. He’s evil!”

“Don’t listen to her!” Tony repeated, louder, his tone more urgent. “It’s me, Steve, okay? I’m myself, I’m not evil, I’m not a doppelgänger, I’m not under anyone’s control. I get that I don’t look so great right now, but you have to believe me. Nothing here is what it seems.”

“Prove it to me,” Steve said, putting a soothing hand on the girl’s shoulder, his shield still raised defensively between him and Tony, who was now standing right in front of him.

“Okay, I can do that. Think back to what just happened. You saw her in the forest and you ran after her. Tell me what happened before that. Tell me how you got there,” Tony prompted, looking into Steve’s eyes.

“What does it matter? What’s that supposed to prove to me? I got here on my bike,” Steve began, and then paused, frowning. He remembered being on his bike and driving here, because—he’d been on his way to this place to—what exactly was this place? Now that Tony asked, he couldn’t say. He had no idea where he was, or why. Why was he chasing a little girl through the evergreens, in the middle of nowhere?

Tony hadn’t missed the look of confusion on Steve’s face. “See? You can’t, can you? That’s because there was nothing before the forest. This isn’t real. This is some kind of a loop that we’re stuck in, and that’s where it begins. I’m betting she’s behind it, somehow,” Tony said, letting go of the pickaxe with one hand to point at the girl.

“But she’s only a child,” Steve said, not sure what to think. The more he thought about the situation, the more it felt like something was amiss.

“I don’t know who or what she is, but she’s definitely not a child,” Tony said.

The girl tugged at Steve’s sleeve. “I am! He’s lying! I don’t understand what he’s talking about.”

Steve moved his hand to grip the girl’s arm tightly. “Then you can tell me why you were running from me, yet now you suddenly want my protection.”

“Because you’re bad but he’s worse,” the girl said, but she didn’t sound half as convincing anymore.

“Because you want us down there. You want us dead,” Tony said, raising his pickaxe higher again. “But we’re done playing your games. Steve, please. You have to trust me.”

“I do,” Steve made up his mind. As haggard as his appearance was, Tony sounded like himself, and Steve did trust him, definitely more than the girl, whose behavior wasn’t making any sense anymore. “This isn’t right.”

The girl kicked at Steve, a much more forceful blow than he’d have expected from someone her size, and managed to slip from his grip, pushing herself away from him. A faint green glow enveloped her, and she grew in size, until she was easily Steve’s height. Her hair turned even longer, golden in the dim light. Her simple, pale green dress took on a more vivid, poisonous hue, and morphed into an elaborate costume that hugged her curvy frame. She was definitely not a little girl, but a villainous and dangerous woman that Steve had met before.

“Enchantress!” Steve exclaimed.

“Amora! I should’ve guessed!” Tony groaned simultaneously.

Everything Tony had told about this not being real and them being stuck in a loop suddenly made sense. It was magic. They were imprisoned in some kind of a magical realm, and she was behind it all. Steve didn’t even need to know the details; it was clear enough that they would have to defeat her to win their freedom.

“Well done, boys, you figured me out,” the Enchantress said in her deceptively melodious voice. “Too bad I can just kill you, and you’ll either die for good, or if you’re really lucky, go back to the beginning, none the wiser.”

Not saying another word, not waiting for her to make the first move, Tony swung the pickaxe at her. She waved her hand at Tony, almost lazily, and sent him flying in a rush of magical energy. He slammed into the cliff face by the mine entrance and slid to the ground, unmoving.

Pushing back his worry for Tony, Steve leaped into action as well, aiming a kick at Amora’s side as she turned to face him. It hit home, but she barely seemed to feel it.

She was a formidable foe: in addition to the sorcery she had at her hands, she was an Asgardian, and as such, stronger, faster and more durable than any human would be. She made another magical gesture in Steve’s direction, but Steve ducked to the ground, and whatever her spell had been, it flew over him. He tossed his shield at her and ran after it, catching it as it bounced off her defensively raised arms, instantly following it with a jump kick, hoping to catch her off-balance.

From the corner of his eye, Steve saw that Tony was slowly getting up from where he’d landed, leaning heavily on the rock behind him. Thank Heavens! Steve had been afraid Tony might not have survived the fall without his armor, already sporting so many injuries.

Amora was trying to cast another spell, her right hand raised in a flourish, but Steve slammed it aside. He couldn’t let her use her magic. There were so many things she could do that Steve would be defenseless against—from physical harm to mind-bending tricks.

She let out an exasperated huff, rubbing at her wrist with her other hand. “You should know, Captain, that trying to wear me out is never going to work.”

“And you should know that I’m never going to give up,” Steve replied, and aimed his boot at her midriff.

Tony had reclaimed his pickaxe from where it had fallen, and was slowly walking towards them. Amora wasn’t paying any attention to him at all, clearly assuming that Tony was still out for the count. Steve wanted to keep it that way. He went on fighting, not as much trying to hurt her, but to keep her occupied, moving as fast as he could, putting in elaborate, acrobatic turns that he otherwise wouldn’t have done. She was easily deflecting or shrugging off most of his blows, but that didn’t matter.

Tony made it to mere feet behind her, his steps slow and staggering. The white-knuckled grip he had on his weapon was steady, nevertheless.

In a move Amora certainly didn’t expect, Steve dropped his shield and grabbed at both her arms to keep her in place. Steve saw the flash of surprise on her face as it dawned on her that she’d missed something important.

Tony struck with all his might, groaning, lips twisted into a grimace that revealed his teeth.

Steve didn’t see the hit, standing in front of Amora, but he could hear as the blade sank into her back, and see the shock of the impact run through her. Her eyes went wide, and she cried out in pain. Tony wrenched the weapon out, the sharper half of the blade now glistening with fresh blood, and dropped it to the ground, his shoulders sagging.

Steve let go of Amora, who fell onto her knees. “You call yourselves heroes and stab me in the back? Don’t think you’ve really hurt me! It’s not that easy,” she spat through gritted teeth, not coming through all that convincing with the pain so evident on her face. “This won't be the last you'll hear from me.”

The Enchantress closed her eyes and bent her head. Steve didn’t even realize that might be an attempt at magic, but that was what she was up to: all of a sudden, she faded away as if she’d never been there, disappearing into thin air.

Just like that, she was gone, and the battle was over.

Without Amora standing between them, Steve was left facing Tony, who looked an inch away from collapse, ashen-faced and wavering on his feet. “We did it,” he said breathlessly, more disbelief than triumph in his voice.

Steve was sure he didn’t know the half of it. He had no idea what horrors Tony had faced in that mine to end up so battered, or how long it had taken him to figure out what was going on and to make his way here.

Tony coughed, a terrible, wet sound that made Steve’s worry double instantly. It went up tenfold when he noticed the trickle of blood running down Tony’s chin.

“We won. It’s going to be all right,” Steve said reassuringly. It would have to be, somehow.

He moved closer to offer Tony a supportive arm, but Tony seemed to have a different idea. He all but threw himself into Steve’s embrace, leaning bonelessly into him. Steve did what was called for, and put his arms around Tony. He found himself taking most of Tony’s weight.

“Don’t know what happens now. Was hoping that’d end it,” Tony wheezed into Steve’s neck. He sounded like he was dying; with who knew what internal injuries from his fall, it was all too possible that he was, and Steve didn’t think there was anything he could do to help.

Though Steve’s attention was on Tony, he was looking over Tony’s shoulder at the landscape around them, the cliff in front of him, the forest to the side, and he saw that something was changing. It had been twilight when he’d gotten here, with the last rays of a distant sun filtering through the trees, but now, the light was growing brighter. It didn’t look like a sunrise. It came from all directions, a blinding, brilliant white light, shining out of the mine entrance and from between the tree trunks, making it impossible to see anything past their immediate surroundings.

“I think it did,” Steve told Tony, hugging him closer. “Look!”

Tony raised his forehead from Steve’s shoulder. They were left standing on a lone island of muddy ground and grass in the middle of a featureless, all-encompassing whiteness.

“Oh!” Tony gasped, as the dazzling light flowed in to envelop them completely.


	7. Epilogue

### Epilogue

Slowly, the blinding whiteness began to dissipate, forming into shapes, into walls and into figures standing over Tony. The strong arms that had been holding him had disappeared. He wasn’t leaning against Steve, but lying on his back, on a soft, dry surface.

Breathing didn’t hurt anymore; both the sting of the cuts and the far worse ache of what must have been several shattered ribs, turning each breath into a struggle, were entirely gone. He couldn’t feel any of his injuries, and their sudden absence felt strange. Unreal. No matter how focused he’d been on survival, they’d constantly been there, a relentless reminder of each time he’d failed to hold back the monsters. Now they were gone, as if they’d never been there at all.

“Mr. Stark? Tony? Can you hear me?” a tense female voice addressed him.

He blinked, bringing into focus the familiar, though unexpected, face of Dr. Jane Foster. Not far from her, he could see Jan, who was wearing an openly concerned expression.

“Sure,” Tony replied, his voice muffled by an oxygen mask, which he actually didn’t need, not anymore. He pulled it off, and tried again. “Sure, I can.”

“How are you feeling? Can you tell us what happened?” Dr. Foster asked.

The surroundings were starting to make more sense now: he must be in the medlab, at the Mansion. In the real world. He was awake. The nightmare was finally over.

“Fine, and it’s a long story,” Tony said. He wouldn’t even know where to begin—and some parts of what had happened, he was never going to tell anyone—most definitely not Steve.

Steve.

He remembered kissing Steve, remembered that unexpected, hurried grope in the locker room—and he remembered Steve dying. _Twice._

Tony didn’t just remember running away from the monsters while Steve, mortally wounded, stayed behind. He remembered the first time Steve had died, back when he’d had no idea that Steve would come back, watching as the monsters tore him apart. He’d felt so sick with dread and loss, he’d thought he would never be all right again.

He remembered dying, the battery that had been powering his heart broken on the floor. He had kissed Steve on the lips as the last thing he did, then. Spent his last breath trying to confess his love.

It was all perfectly clear in his mind, both the times he had found himself in that forest, first with Steve by his side, then on his own.

A hand gripped his shoulder, forcing him out of the memories. “Tony?” Dr. Foster sounded worried.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “I’m all right, honest.”

He sat up on the bed, ignoring Dr. Foster’s attempts to push him down. He looked around. Across from him, there was another bed. Steve was sitting on it, talking to a somber Wanda in a low voice.

Steve must have been stuck in a magical dream, too. That didn’t necessarily have to mean anything. For all Tony knew, it could’ve been an entirely different scenario that Steve had made his way out of on his own.

If it had been the same one, and if Tony could remember everything, so would Steve.

Steve turned to look at Tony, and the moment their eyes met, Tony was sure it had been the same dream, no doubt about it. It was like an entire conversation without a single word exchanged, going from Steve’s initial frown to wide-eyed realization, with the slightest of blushes creeping up Steve’s cheeks.

They had both lived through all of it. Not just in Tony’s head, but Steve’s, too. Each conversation they’d had, he’d really been talking to Steve, not to some virtual lookalike.

He’d—not just told Steve how he felt, but made those feelings abundantly clear in the most hands-on manner possible.

He turned his eyes from Steve. This was too much for him to handle right now. A minute ago he’d been sure he was dying. He'd thought Steve hadn't been real.

He couldn’t be here. He wasn’t ready to face this. He needed space.

Tony slid off the bed, his bare feet hitting a cold stone floor. The room was spinning. He leaned on the mattress with one hand to keep his balance, reeling.

“Come on, sit down, Tony. I need to make sure you’re all right before I let you wander off,” Dr. Foster demanded, her hand on Tony’s back.

“No, sorry, I really need to get out of here,” Tony said, sounding about as close to panic as he felt. The surroundings had settled somewhat, or rather, his head had. Dr. Foster seemed to catch his urgent tone, and let go of him. Jarvis appeared with a dressing gown, helped Tony shrug into it, and offered him a shoulder to lean on.

“Thanks, Jarvis,” Tony said gratefully.

“You’re welcome, sir. Where are we going?” Jarvis asked.

“My room,” Tony replied. “I need some time to wrap my head around things.”

Though his imaginary injuries were gone and there was nothing left of the magical dreamscape but a collection of vivid memories, he still felt more than a little shaky and weak. He was glad Jarvis was by his side. Slowly, they made their way across the Mansion. Jarvis, discreet as ever, didn’t pry, just kept him silent company.

When they reached his bedroom, Tony bid Jarvis goodbye, closed the door behind him and stumbled to the bed. He landed on his back, staring at the ceiling, breathing hard.

He’d told Steve, and Steve had been fine with it. Steve had been very obviously and enthusiastically fine with it. Tony couldn’t bring himself to believe it. It was too unlikely. They’d known each other for years. If Steve had ever felt anything for him, surely he would’ve acted on it long ago. Tony had never as much as seen any indication that Steve might be interested in men, let alone in Tony.

The only conclusion that made any sense was that there must’ve been something else going on, some kind of a spell—an additional twist that the Enchantress had put on that dream, some kind of a mind control trick. Steve had probably blushed because he was so embarrassed about what had happened. He hadn’t said anything. There had been none of that warmth in his eyes that Tony had seen in the dream; Steve hadn’t as much as smiled at him. If he’d been okay with what had happened, he would have.

If Steve hadn’t actually wanted it, that’d mean that Tony had—he’d violated Steve—he’d been so sure it hadn’t been the real Steve he was facing, he’d let himself go too far. He should’ve considered all the possible scenarios. He should’ve kept himself in check.

He felt sick with guilt. Worse than when he’d stabbed Steve in the thigh with a pickaxe.

Tony couldn't see how they were going to get over this, and he had no idea what he was going to say when he next came face to face with Steve. Until he could figure that out, hiding here seemed like the best course of action.

  


* * *

  


Steve had to use all the self-control he could muster not to run after Tony when he made his hasty exit. Tony needed time to think. Steve understood that perfectly. He could’ve used some, himself, but first, he wanted to hear what had happened in the real world, and to give the others some idea of what he and Tony had gone through.

He sat patiently through the tests Dr. Foster wanted to run, and replied all the questions she, Wanda and Jan had, to the level of detail he was comfortable with.

“She was telling you the truth,” Dr. Foster confirmed, when Steve described how Amora, in her little girl guise, had told them that dying in the dream equalled dying for real. “We nearly lost you twice. Circulatory collapse for no apparent reason. If your chest feels sore, that'll be from our resuscitation efforts. The second time was just around half an hour ago. It was a close call, looked pretty bad for a while there.”

“I can imagine,” Steve said. “It felt pretty bad, too.”

Just thinking about it brought up bile at the back of his throat. It was unnerving to have such clear memories of his death, of lying on the muddy ground, struggling feebly to push away the monsters that were about to sink their teeth into his flesh. He shuddered, and tried to focus on the present.

“What about Tony?” Steve asked.

“His heart stopped once. Luckily, Jarvis knew how to reboot it. He’d be dead if not for that,” Dr. Foster said gravely. “I was worried it might happen again just before you woke up. He seemed to have trouble breathing. I’d appreciate it if you could talk him into coming back for a proper check-up.”

Steve sighed. “I’m not sure he wants to talk to me right now, but I’ll try.” He couldn't tell what was going through Tony’s head—he didn't even know what to think himself.

Dr. Foster handed him his shirt—perfectly unblemished, not torn and bloodstained like it had been for most of the dream. He pulled it on and stood up. His ribs did feel a little bruised. It was a small price to pay for surviving the horrors he’d been through.

“Any idea what happened to Amora?” Steve asked, casting an inquiring glance at Jan. 

Now that the haziness that had muddled his memories of what had happened before the dream was gone, he remembered the battle where they had fallen under the spell: a relatively unremarkable one, close to home, facing the Enchantress and a gang of minor thugs under her control. He had been fighting side by side with Tony, and the last thing he’d seen had been a dense, dark mist that blocked out the sun.

“She disappeared the moment you fell unconscious. We’ve been looking for her ever since,” Jan told him. “Last I heard from Thor, they’d finally found a lead of some sort.”

“Let me know if there’s any news,” Steve said.

“Of course I will. Until then, I agree that you ought to talk to Tony,” Jan said. “He seemed really upset, and you're the only one who knows all the details of that awful dream.”

They definitely needed to talk, for more reasons than Jan was aware of. “I’ll go and see if he’s willing to have a word,” Steve said.

As he walked through the Mansion towards Tony's quarters, Steve tried to figure out what he should say. It felt like that conversation in the locker room all over again. If it had taken the constant threat of gruesome death hanging over their heads to make them come clear about their feelings, what did that say about them? Were they in any way ready to handle those feelings in a less urgent setting?

Tony had definitely seemed upset when he’d run out of the medlab. Was he having second thoughts? He'd seemed fine with everything in the dream, but clearly, something was up now. Of course, other things had happened in the dream aside from their discovery of mutual feelings, and a lot of it had been very traumatic. Remembering his own death was one thing, watching Tony die in his arms, now, Steve would rather have died another five times himself than gone through that once—and Tony had seen Steve die twice.

Deep in thought, he reached Tony’s bedroom door almost too soon. He knocked on it warily. “Tony? Can I come in?”

There was no reply. Was Tony not there, after all? Or worse yet, was there something wrong with him? Steve had been fine on waking up, but he’d also been fine in the dream, while Tony had been been everything but.

He tried again, knocking louder and calling out, “Are you in there, Tony? Are you okay?”

“I’m here,” Tony replied, sounding subdued.

“We should talk. Is it all right if I come in?” Steve asked.

“Door’s not locked,” Tony said. It wasn’t exactly a “yes”, but close enough for Steve.

He opened the door. Tony was sitting on the bed, on top of the covers, looking so forlorn, Steve just wanted to rush in and grab him in a hug. Not sure if that would be welcomed, he settled for taking a seat next to Tony and placing a hand on his back instead—but when Steve tried to touch him, Tony shrank away as if burned.

Steve pulled away his hand, taken aback. “Tony? What’s wrong?”

Tony wouldn’t even look at him, staring at the floor instead. “You remember everything, too, don’t you?” he asked, his voice soft and hesitant.

Steve did, of course, but if he remembered everything the same way Tony did, he couldn’t understand what had brought this on. The way Tony was acting was beyond regret. It was more like he’d been—forced to do something against his will? Oh, God. Had Steve got it all wrong? He had worried for a little while there that he might’ve taken advantage of Tony, but that feeling had been short-lived, because Tony had seemed fine with everything.

“I thought I did, but you’re starting to make me wonder,” Steve replied slowly. “I realize I made the first move, and if I did anything that wasn’t okay for you—”

“I’m pretty sure I made the first move,” Tony said, casting a sideways glance at Steve. “I kissed you. I shouldn’t have, I’m really sorry about that.”

“Huh?” Steve blurted out. He had no idea where this was coming from. Hadn’t they already had this conversation once? “You have nothing to apologize for! Sure, you kissed me, and then you died! The best and the worst things I’ve ever gone through, in the space of a heartbeat. As far as I remember, I kissed you back as soon as I had the chance.”

Tony turned his head to look at Steve properly, staring at him with a deep frown, as if trying to see into his thoughts. “You’re not still under some kind of a spell, are you?”

“Why would you even think that? Of course I’m not!” Steve exclaimed. Was that what this was about, then? Tony thinking that Steve hadn’t been acting himself in the dream? “We’re both back in good old regular reality, as far as I can tell, and I’m not under a spell of any sort. I’m fine. Just a bit concerned for you, is all.” He reached out to take Tony’s hand, and this time, Tony didn’t shy away, though he did look extremely confused.

“But—wait, are you saying you’re okay with everything that happened?” Tony asked disbelievingly.

“Yes! I thought I made myself clear enough back there,” Steve said, placing his other hand on top of Tony’s and looking him in the eye. “I really, really like you, Tony. Have liked you ever since I learned that Tony Stark and Iron Man are the same person. I meant what I said in that locker room, that I’d like to do it again, outside of the dream. If you want to.”

Tony opened his mouth and closed it again, clearly at a loss for words. Steve could see the struggle on his face: he still had a hard time believing that Steve was telling the truth.

“Would it be okay if I kissed you now?” Steve asked.

Tony’s lips finally curled into a smile. “Yeah,” he breathed. He didn’t wait for Steve to make a move, but slipped a hand to Steve’s cheek and pulled him into what was both the first and the fifth time they’d kissed.

Though their lips had never touched outside of the dream, the feel of Tony’s mouth against Steve’s was already familiar. Everything else was different. They were in the real world, and there was no hurry. There was no trace of blood that he could taste. They were both safe and sound, neither of them injured, let alone dying. No monsters were waiting for them behind the door. 

They had all the time in the world, and they made the most of it; what started as a cautious, tentative kiss deepened into a far more intense one, with tongues and teeth, yet still gentle, leisurely, enjoying what neither of them had ever expected to have. Somewhere along the line, Tony ended up sitting on Steve’s lap, his legs around Steve’s hips, and Steve wrapped his arms around Tony, happy to hold him close.

Tony’s hands finally left Steve’s face to tug at his shirt at his waist. “Come on, I need to see you properly, without all those dreadful wounds,” he encouraged.

Steve was happy to oblige: he raised his hands, allowing Tony to pull off his shirt and drop it on the floor. Then Tony turned to look at him again, taking in his bare upper body, and drew a shuddering breath, shaking his head. “You’re perfect. God, I still can’t believe this is real.”

Tony placed his hands on Steve’s shoulders, and ran them down his front, slowly, following the edges of his pecs, running over his ribs, trailing over his abs, as if striving to memorize every detail. Steve didn’t move, letting Tony enjoy the moment. He could only describe Tony’s expression as reverent. He was well aware that people found him handsome, but he didn’t think anyone had looked at him quite like this before.

When Tony’s hands paused momentarily at Steve’s waist, Steve took his chance, and covered them with his palms. “All right, my turn, now,” he said, and moved his hands up to remove Tony’s dressing gown.

“I’m not much to look at, and you know it,” Tony complained, though he didn’t resist, pushing back his shoulders and spreading out his arms, hands pointed at the floor, letting Steve slide the gown off of him. He tossed it away carelessly. Underneath, Tony still wore jeans—the ones he’d had under his armor when they’d been caught in the spell. The very same ones he’d had in the dream, but intact.

“That’s where you’re wrong. You’re perfect, too. Absolutely perfect,” Steve told him, his eyes on Tony’s upper body.

Maybe Tony wasn’t quite as powerfully built as Steve, but he was lean and sinewy, all of it from plain, hard work, which made it even more appealing to Steve. Mirroring Tony’s earlier motions, he let his hands trail along Tony’s body, starting from his hips, working his way up, exploring every square inch. When he got to Tony’s chest, though, he stopped, palms resting on both sides of where the metal of Tony’s heart broke his skin. He had no idea if that was all right to touch.

When he looked up at Tony’s face inquiringly, Tony gave him a grimace. “Yeah, I know it’s not pretty. You can touch it, though, if you want to. It’s actually far less breakable than the rest of me,” he said self-deprecatingly.

“As long as you’re alive and well, Tony, I don’t care. Whether it’s a full chestplate you need, or this, it’ll always be beautiful to me,” Steve said, running his thumbs over the seam of metal and skin. “What happened in the dream—could it really be damaged like that?”

Tony shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t have thought that possible, but who knows. I’d rather not find out. Actually, I’d really rather not think about that at all.”

Steve almost groaned aloud. He was an idiot. Yeah, that definitely wasn’t something to bring up, not now, when everything was good. “Sorry, sorry, forget I said that,” Steve said quickly, sliding his hands over to Tony’s back, and pulling him close into another kiss.

  


* * *

  


There was nothing like the feel of Steve’s lips, hot and eager, to dispel the dismal memories of sitting in that dim hole in the rock, alone, thinking Steve was gone and Tony would be soon to follow.

Steve was right there, sitting on Tony’s bed, very much alive. It was all real, and Steve still wanted him, just as much as he’d always wanted Steve.

Tony slipped his hands to Steve’s belt. “This needs to come off,” he said, his lips still brushing Steve’s.

Steve’s hands followed Tony’s, to work at his belt, but Tony grabbed his wrists and pushed them away. “No, I want to do this.”

“Okay,” Steve said, sounding mildly amused. He placed his hands on the bed, leaning against them.

Tony crouched on the floor to pull off Steve’s boots, and then moved on to take off Steve’s belt. Steve raised his hips off the bed, letting Tony slide his pants and briefs off in a single tangle of fabric. As he worked on that, Tony followed his hands with his mouth, dropping kisses to the skin he was revealing, the soft touches trailing across Steve’s hip and down his thigh. He paused for a moment with Steve’s pants at his knees, lips pressed over the spot where he’d wounded Steve so horrendously in the dream. It was perfectly intact, now, nothing but solid muscle and smooth, fair skin. He inhaled, drawing in the smell of Steve's skin and the lingering scent of the fabric of his costume.

Steve ran his fingers soothingly through Tony’s hair. No doubt he could tell what Tony was thinking about. “It’s fine, Tony,” he said softly. “No need to dwell on that, either.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Tony said, and went on tugging at Steve’s pants.

Once he had Steve out of his clothes entirely, he took a moment to sit on the floor in front of Steve, admiring the view and contemplating his next move. Steve made his choice for him. “You next. Stand up,” he ordered.

The commanding tone took Tony by surprise, and together with the hungry look Steve was giving him, it sent a shiver down his spine. Tony did as he was told. Steve, still sitting down on the bed, bent to kiss Tony’s stomach. Working far less slowly than Tony had, he quickly unbuttoned Tony’s jeans and pushed them down, so he could step out of them.

“Absolutely perfect, just as I said,” Steve said, his hands on both sides of Tony’s hips. His eyes were on Tony’s crotch, the pupils so wide there was barely any blue to be seen. Damn it, he was making Tony feel ridiculously flustered—Steve had never looked at him like that, not even in his loveliest dreams. Maybe that was proof enough that this actually wasn’t one of them.

Tony moved closer and settled himself in Steve’s lap again, his legs around Steve, his hands on Steve’s back, feeling Steve’s hardening cock against his own.

“What do you want?” he asked Steve. He actually had no idea how experienced Steve was, when it came to having sex with men. Until today he’d been pretty sure Steve’s experience level was a perfect zero, but then, he’d also thought Steve was as straight as they came, and he’d obviously been wrong about that.

Steve bucked his hips against Tony, strongly enough to lift him up. “I want—I want _everything_ —but right now, I want what I said. Like in the dream, just without any of the injuries,” Steve said hoarsely.

“I’d love that,” Tony said.

He pushed at Steve’s shoulders, and Steve obliged, lying down on the bed on his back. Tony followed, landing on top of him, the length of their bodies pressed together. He kissed Steve again, and started grinding against him. That got him an incredibly hot moan in reply, against his open mouth. Steve joined in, moving his hips against Tony, his back arched off the bed. One of his hands found its way to Tony’s ass, pressing them even closer together.

Almost like in the in the dream, but so much better. The way Steve’s muscles tensed under him and the feel of his hard-on rubbing against Steve’s were almost too much. He’d thought he wanted to take it slow, but hell if he was going to stop now, this was too good. They could do slow some other time.

“I want to touch you,” Steve said against his mouth, breathless but demanding.

“God, yes, please do,” Tony replied. He raised himself slightly on his elbows and knees, giving Steve room to slip a hand between them and take both their cocks in his fist, like Tony had done in the dream. Tony groaned impatiently and jerked his hips, urging Steve to move that hand. Steve did, tentatively at first, then rougher, his hand feeling clearly different from Tony’s—it wasn’t as if Tony’s hands were small or weak, but this was Captain America. His hands were bigger and stronger than almost anyone’s.

“Yes! Yes, like that! Not far now,” Tony cried out. He sat up, Steve letting up enough that he could, so he could see it, that unreal, amazingly hot sight of Steve jacking them off, the ecstatic look on Steve’s face.

Tony couldn’t hold it back it any longer. He threw back his head and gasped as he came. Steve followed, mere seconds later, moaning aloud, their come mixing together between them.

Tony sagged to lie on top of Steve again as they relaxed, pressing lazy kisses to his face. Steve’s eyes were closed, and he’d never looked more beautiful to Tony than now, his lips slightly parted, cheeks flushed.

They lay there for a good long while without saying a thing, Steve’s hand caressing Tony’s back, Tony stroking Steve’s cheek with his thumb, his mind happily void of any thoughts other than how incredible this was.

“I can’t believe we could’ve had this any time, and we just never realized,” Tony said softly.

“Yeah. I’m glad we have it now,” Steve said, opening his eyes to look at Tony so lovingly it almost hurt.

“Probably not what Amora had in mind when she cast that spell,” Tony joked.

“Probably not,” Steve agreed. “Should we get cleaned up?”

Tony wouldn’t have minded staying in bed for the foreseeable future, but then again, there could be perks to getting cleaned up. “Hmm, yes. I think we should. I have quite the nice bathroom here. With warm water that doesn’t smell of rust.”

They took their time in the shower, making it another perfect counterpoint to what had happened in the dream, with hands running along soap-slicked bodies, luxuriating in the warmth and the closeness. More than anything, it felt like they were washing away the lingering remnants of the dream horrors, and that was exactly what Tony needed.

They had just stepped out of the bathroom, Tony dressed in a bathrobe, Steve with a towel around his waist, when there was a knock at the door. Tony quickly picked up Steve’s costume from the floor and pushed it at him.

“Tony? Are you there?” Wanda’s voice called out. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m here, everything’s great, give me a sec,” Tony replied. Not the best timing, but it could’ve been a lot worse. Tony tightened the belt of his bathrobe before walking slowly to the door. He didn’t open it all the way, to keep Steve from sight. “Wanda. What’s up?”

“Glad to see you’re okay, Tony! I’ve got some news. Have you seen Steve?” Wanda asked.

“He’s—” Tony began, not entirely sure if he should reveal Steve’s presence.

“I’m right here,” Steve said, and showed up by Tony’s side, his hair very obviously wet from the shower, wearing his costume sans gloves or boots, his feet bare.

Tony had to give Wanda credit for trying to cover her surprised expression at the sight, though she didn’t quite manage it. “Uh, I can come back later, if this isn’t a good time,” she stammered.

“No, now is fine,” Steve said in a perfectly unabashed Captain America voice. “If there’s news, I want to hear it.”

“Okay. It’s not much, I’m afraid,” Wanda began. “You know we’ve been trying to track down Amora since you fell under her spell.”

“But you didn’t find her?” Tony said. He had, actually, not heard a single thing about what the rest of the Avengers had been up to while the two of them were stuck in the dream, thanks to his hasty exit from the medlab.

“We didn’t,” Wanda said. “But Thor and Vision found what must’ve been her hideout, with some symbols and items that were a part of crafting that spell. I went there to take a look, I just got back.”

“Why didn’t someone tell us earlier? I did say to Jan that I’d like to stay informed,” Steve complained.

“She thought you needed the time,” Wanda said. Tony would have to remember to thank Jan for that, because she’d definitely made the right call.

“What can you say about this spell, then?” Tony asked.

“For one, it definitely wasn’t Asgardian magic, and Thor agreed with me on that. I can’t claim to understand the fine details of it very well,” Wanda said apologetically. “I’ll need to spend some time in the library and maybe ask around for advice. What I can say so far is that it wasn’t aimed specifically at the two of you, and that these seemed to be a core component of it, like an anchoring point for the entire dream realm.”

Wanda held out a clear plastic sample bag. Inside of it sat a number of thin, white objects: finger bones. When Tony looked really closely, he could see the unmistakable marks that sharp, gnawing teeth had left on them.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Warnings:** During the course of the story, both Steve and Tony have a number of nasty injuries that are occasionally described in some detail. Steve dies twice, the first time particularly violent (including a mention of dismemberment), the other off-screen. Tony dies once. All character deaths happen in a [Your Mind Makes It Real](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YourMindMakesItReal) sort of setting, so they aren't exactly real, but do have real world repercussions. And whatever that sounds like when described by me, my betas have told me that overall, this doesn’t read/feel that bad (as in, people who usually nope out of gory things have been okay with it).
> 
>  **Notes:** In addition to the art (did I mention how much I love the art? The art is AMAZING!), this story was inspired by the awesome cave horror movie, [The Descent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Descent) (particularly the monsters). Additional inspiration from several movies and shows that play with the Groundhog Day trope.
> 
> Tumblr post for the art (with link to the story) can be found [here](http://tonysvandyke.tumblr.com/post/144751412051/hey-there-heres-my-piece-for-this-years-imcap)!


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